Sandy River Track State Meet!

Alright, so I realize that I created this blog on account of wanting the world to know about our fun high school team, but I cannot exclude mentioning our "feeder program" as well, the Sandy River summer track and cross country teams (Fr. Katherine Gunther, our current #2 girl runner, has recently come to us from the program). Here's a brief background on the program: My parents are go-getters, so when the Farmington Rec. AND the Mt. Blue Middle School decided to both discontinue their running programs, they were naturally furious. The reasoning for shutting down both programs was for lack of participation, so it was natural that they would decide to make budget cuts in those areas. Several years later, my parents, as well as help from parents of the young athletes on the team, have turned the programs around, more than doubling the participation of each program. I help as a volunteer coach (in fact, it's volunteer work for everyone). The middle school-aged team went from having two girls on it, to having a State Champion girls team over the course of a year. Props, girls!
Below are some pictures taken at the recent USATF Youth Summer Track State Meet.
KKNW, Addie


Our boys were super excited to place as a relay team at States!

My little sister, Kahryn, and I (watch for her in a few years :)

Our lovely team banner for the traditional parade

Sandy River Track Team State Qualifiers 2011! Awesome job, team :D

Scot Laliberte 2011

I'm always incredibly antsy at the end of the summer to get on the trails and begin racing, which is one of the many reasons why I love having a pre-season meet such as the Scot Laliberte Invitational. At the start of the race (it was a 2.5 mile course for both varsity and JV this year), Tom Wells gave a very nice short speech about Scot. He said, "It poured here yesterday, and the East Coast is preparing for Hurricane Irene to hit tomorrow. But look up, folks. An absolutely blue sky. That's a perfect description of how Scot lived." And I fully admit that I, along with half of my girl's team, got a wee-bit teary eyed and shivery at those words. The gun goes off, which precedes one of the most hectic starts I ever experience in races.. because boys are usually, not more aggressive in the start, but certainly stronger shovers, on accident of course (I love "course" puns on this blog.. as well as Pre ones, now that I think about it :P) Our top guy finisher was Jr. Justin Tracy (13th) followed by Jr. Sully Jackson. In the girl's JV race, Sr. Courtney Qi podiumed (9th). I ended up as the 4th girl (88th overall) with a 17:26.. both place and time were my exact goals :D Following me were Fr. Katherine Gunther (15th) and Louisa Stancioff (after Katherine) Also, Mt. Blue was pleasantly surprised that we pulled off a 3rd place overall team finish, behind Brunswick and Mt. Ararat. Nicely done, gang :D
KKNW, Addie

Acadia Trip 2011

Every year the team piles into vans and cars and drives to Mt. Desert Island for three days of camping, swimming and, of course, running! Before I get to the actual running part, there were several occurrences I would like to highlight. In the mornings, the team goes on an easy run before breakfast. On the first morning, we were running and saw a desolate beach down the road. I noticed something big on the shore that was reflecting the sun off of it.. and it was definitely not a rock. "You guys, is that a whale on the beach? Oh my gosh, there's a whale on the beach down there!" As we approached the beach, we could tell that it was, in fact, a beached whale. Obviously we all sprinted down to investigate. There was a marine biologist from the College of the Atlantic who was down there, and informed us that it was a nineteen-foot sub-adult male minke whale. The smell of rotting whale, by the way, is absolutely nasty! The whale's tongue was lolled out onto the sand, and it was rather dried-up.
The second major event happened on the last afternoon in Bar Harbor. I'd gone to the sketchy old bathroom in the park to change into street clothes, and literally bolted myself shut into the huge stall (whose walls were made of concrete). There was no way I was going to be able to climb over the stall door, and the space under it could not accommodate the size of my body. My friend said to stand back, and she was going to kick the door in. She did, and I was free :D
Okay, running. So the team is a fairly young one this year, but don't I seem to say that every year!? In the two mile time trial we do on the carriage trails, I bettered my previous time by twenty seconds. Louisa Stancioff (my savior :) followed a little less than a minute later. The rest of the varsity (as of now) will include Fr. Katherine Gunther, So's. Sarah Wade and Macee Qi, Jr. Maryam Norton, and joining us this year, my cousin, Sr. Emily Roberts. We're ever so pleased for all of you to be on the team!! The guy's team is showing promise as well! Looking forward to Scot Laliberte tomorrow :D


The team on top of Cadillac Mtn. for sunset

Silas Rogers and I riding some waves into Sand Beach

Left to Right; Me (Addie Cullenberg), Louisa Stancioff and Silas Rogers

Top Ten Pictures At States

I recently saw an online article about the ten best photographs taken at the Class A outdoor track states this past spring... and then also realized that one of those pictures was of me (and recent graduate Gwen Beacham!), so I thought I'd post it and give awesome photography credit to Pam Swan :)

Pre Lives In All Of Us (GMRC 2011).

Green Mountain Running Camp (Week One, 2011)- Running Camp #2. My fourth and final year as a camper.

This year I was accompanied by fellow teammates Maryam Norton (2nd year camper) and first year campers Juliette Luchini and Dustin Staples. One of the fantastic parts about camp is that returning always feels like a big family reunion. I always get excited butterflies when we pull in to the familiar Lyndon State College campus. My roommate this year, Christa Fagone (from Simsbury, CT.), is an amazing friend of mine that I met three years ago at camp. Her bus was running extremely late, but when she finally arrived it was like we'd never left camp last year (minus the fact that we had a good year's worth of life in general to catch up on).
GMRC is absolutely meritorious running camp.

(Note: this post is still under construction :)