BRUNSWICK (my Birthright)!

From left to right: Emily G., Molly, Alexaiya, Louise, Casey, Chenoa

Emily Ro., Katherine, Maryam

Today was a rainy day. How beautiful is that? Rain on the day of the Brunswick meet means no horrible "desert" part of the course (cue angels singing Hallelujah). For those of you who have never run on Brunswick's course, you can find it at a farm -Crystal Springs Farm (or something along those lines)- mere minutes away from the school. The course narrows to about a person and a half width within 200 meters or so, and throughout the race, one must negotiate where to step, as footing can be rough with the awkward slanted hills and abundant amount of white roots. I'm just taking a guess that whoever spray-painted all of those roots is probably in the hospital for life due to back problems.. every root bigger than a pencil is highlighted. Which, don't get me wrong, is really wonderful, but jeesh! In the beginning, I felt the need to pick up the pace a little bit, expecting others to follow suit, but when they didn't, I kept going. I passed the first mile in a 6:20, and wondered why I was still alone. Midway through the race, Teresa Murphy (Bruns) caught up with me, and held a little bit of distance on me to the end.. I'm not sure how much it was exactly, because no other team got times (the timing system malfunctioned, but our coach always times Mt. Blue athletes just in case). Unfortunately, I ended up with a 21:02. It would have been a relief to break 21 on that course, but it has made me all the more excited for FOC next weekend. Louisa Stancioff ended up 5th after a stellar kick in the end, and on the boy's side, we had several in the top ten. The girls finished 3rd behind Mt. Ararat and Brunswick (which was only 1 point ahead of us!!)
KKNW, Addie

Highlights:
-Subway
-Cosmo
-The bonding moment I experienced with fellow captain and blogger, Maryam, prior to the race ;)

Small World of Running

So something has been happening to me a lot recently, I see someone who looks vaguely familiar in another town and think all day about where I've seen them before. About 80% of the time I eventually realize that I know them from xc, indoor or outdoor track.
Today I went to an college open house and continuously had this happen to me, I saw a guy asking a question to the head of admissions and thought "I bet he's a runner" and then two seconds later heard him talking about track. The same thing happened with a girl who I was absolutely positive I had seen before, but couldn't place where (outdoor track). Runners seem to have a sixth sense about when other runners are around, and seeing each other usually starts with a "Do I know you?" look and ends with a "Hey, I think we raced together!"
The point of all this is that I am always finding new members of the big running family. Those of you planning on running in college will probably end up having some of your rivals become your room-mates and having high school teammates running at rival colleges. Running is a pretty tight-knit community, and it makes me happy to know that wherever I end up I'll have a familiar face to run with.

KKNW,
Maryam

USATF NATIONALS

Here's my schpeal. Contact me either at a meet or by facebook (whether you are a guy or girl, really, I'll help any of you) if you are interested. The location where Regionals will be held has not been announced yet, but States are always at Cony and Nat's this year are in Myrtle Beach. Teams can carry eight people, and the top three teams at Regionals qualify for Nationals (or you can qualify individually). DO IT, It is SUPER FUN :D
KKNW, Addie

Zucchini Toss 2011

This year was the second annual (if we can call it "annual" already) Mt. Blue cross country Zucchini Toss. Everyone on the team draws a slip of paper with a number on it, and then trades it in for that number zuke. The catch is that you don't know what shape of size your vegetable is going to be. The number zucchini is assigned to an elite running athlete, which the MB athletes then have to find three facts about, so the competition has a learning piece to it as well. I drew #10, Alan Webb. On the girl's side, the farthest throw was by Emily Gardner, and the boy's (and overall) champion was Dustin Staples.
KKNW, Addie

La-La-La-LAWRENCE!

Happy 50th post! Right now I am currently blogging whilst transfixed by the moon. Oh the moon! The sky has been a beaut today; its been absolutely lovely outside (especially the pink and gold sunset on the bus ride home, hope you all took the time to appreciate it :) Besides throwing it in there that I'm extremely hungry for dinner (so I'm going to type this up fast), I'm ready to start! Aight, so there were seven scoring girl's teams, and nine on the guys side (I believe)! Erzsebet Nagy stole the show once again, winning on her home course. Teresa Murphy of Brunswick was second, and I rounded up the top three. Our girls, I was very impressed to learn, placed four in the top ten, and we won with 31 points. Brunswick followed with 64. On the guy's side, Jonathan Stanhope of Bangor kinda came out of nowhere (he's legit, you'll be hearing about him for sure this season), being pursued hot-on-the-heals by Benson Worthington of B-wick. Mt. Blue's own Justin Tracy (Jr.) lead the first mile and finished 4th with an 18:02. It really made a difference in the mental preparation department carrying the team's iPod player during the course walk with our playlist going. And, if anyone from Lawrence happens to read this post that didn't already hear it from me, we really appreciate the food station that you provide the runners, it's fabulous. See you guys at Leavitt next week, without the hill :( Awesome jobs today running, now for dinner :D
KKNW, Addie

Home Meet, Home Mountain.

Home of Mt. Blue Relays, the Mt. Blue High School course is a legend, known throughout the state as one of the most challenging (and usually muddy) race venues in Maine. This year the orchard where the start and finish are looked quite charming; a wedding had taken place there during the weekend of Irene. The bases of the old, gnarly apple trees had been circled in mulch, and pots spilling with flowers had been scattered hither-dither atop the rings of mulch. As we learned in elementary school to never judge a book by its cover, Maine athletes have realized to take the same caution with our course. Pretty in the field, hilly in the woods. The team did not do a course walk because we'd previewed the following day in practice, and I was quite surprised during the race when things started to get messy. They were not conditions to PR in. That being said, I will now contradict that statement by announcing that Ersie Nagy of Lawrence set a new course record. The previous one had been set by my close friend, Melody Lam in 2009. On the boy's side, Harlow Ladd (Mess) just barely missed the boy's course record held by my brother, Kelton Cullenberg. As for team scores, both the boys and the girls managed victories. What more can I say other than the fact that after the race, we had an awesome team-sleepover and had a shirt swap, where we made a team shirt for another person on the team.

KKNW, Addie

High School Cross Country Preview, Class A

-Lewiston Sun Journal

KKNW, Addie

It's A Documentary!

This year I've taken the liberty of composing a documentary of the MBXC season.. which necessitates my showing up to all of the venues with my face behind a camcorder. Feel free to inquire about an interview (spaces are filling up fast :p), request to have a still-frame taken with a MB team member and your Great Aunt Fuffa, or even just submit ridiculously awesome candids of the team, I promise they wont mind that you do so. A link to the video will be added below at the end of the season, and the finished documentary will probably receive its very own post. I extend my thanks in advance to the Maine running community :D
KKNW, Addie

Quite the Dueling Team

Alright, this is my first post on the MBXC blog so let me introduce myself. I'm Maryam, a junior runner and co-captain of our lovely team. The first thing to note on this post is that this Wednesday we had our first annual Dual-A-Thon. A tradition in our group where people compete in teams with one 2-mile runner, one 8-mile biker and another 2-mile runner. This year was a first for us because (due to lack of a safe road) we ran/biked on the nearby railroad bed. Coming in the lead was iron-man Justin Tracy with a 52:23. Followed closely by a team of Dustin Tracy and Silas Rogers (54:07). Alex Chandler also iron-manned it with a 60:01. Everyone ran well AND had fun documenting the time with Addie's video camera, as well as bike-riding lessons.

Tonight we also had our first team dinner of the year. The food was delicious as always with Sully's famous mac n' cheese and some kind of berry dessert that some mysterious person always brings (thank you). After swimming and eating, some of us relaxed and got pumped for our home meet tomorrow by putting on fake tattoos and listening to Nicki Minaj.

KKNW, Maryam






Kila Kitu Ni Wezekana

(This tattoo has inspired Addie to want to actually get a real one like it)