STATES 2011 @ Twin Brook

Screw it. This whole week I've been trying to come up with a classy (and cheesy) opener for my final in-season cross country post, but unfortunately, nothing of the type has presented itself. So, this is my blog post regarding my final high school cross country meet! I find it absurd how much we contribute to this lovely sport, while still managing to be, on average, the smartest group of athletes out there. My team was away for a full twelve hours for an average of 20 minutes of racing last weekend at States. I started out running with a pack of six or so girls, including the top four Cheverus runners. I felt very confidant in my performance during the race, and was a consistent 10th for most of it. If you are familiar with the course at Twin Brook, you can imagine the finish in the field, where the trail runs parallel to the cluster of trees and rocks where all the team's bags are congregated. The actual finish chute is on a slight downgrade upon passing the trees. Right around there is where I threw on my last finishing kick, and right about there was where a random spectator walked under the flagging and across the course in the direction of a girl that was on her hands and knees (it states clearly in the MPA rulebook that if anyone has contact with racers during said race that it is considered aid, and the racer will promptly be disqualified, so there were many people on the sidelines screaming "don't touch her!"). The lady was very much oblivious to the fact that racers were approaching her, and I ended up running into her. The action of tightening up my muscles in order to prepare for the crash and lessen the impact triggered something within the memory of my vastus medialis (I strained this quad muscle last year the week leading up to the State meet and was unable to run for a solid month), and started to feel something similar to that of my injury last year during my cool down. Not good. Also, I was a mere four seconds from qualifying for New Englands, so I'm very bummed that my season ended so abruptly. It sucks that I'll never know what the outcome could have been had that lady not been there. Although I was hobbling around a bit in my quad wrap during the week proceeding States, I have finally begun to run again. Justin Tracy (Jr.) ended up qualifying for New Englands by two-tenths of a second, so I'll be heading to Rhode Island with him and some others this coming weekend. As for this season's documentary, it should be posted sometime this coming weekend :D
KKNW, Addie

Regionals 2011- Aka Last Time Racing @ Belfast

Yesterday's Regional performance was definitely, after four years of high school running, a mental breakthrough for me. Before the race, the big motivator for my team was to have us live in the moment during the race; that at every point we were to assess our performances and ask ourselves if we were truly giving everything we could in that very second. I was in fifth for a better part of the race, and then with a little over 800m to go, Emma Wood, a good friend that I've gotten to know through running and skiing, made her move, and when she caught up to me, encouraged me to help her pass the girls in front of us. I took a deep breath, told myself it would be all over soon, and adjusted into a much quicker pace with her. We caught up to her teammate Kelly Lynch, and they ended up running stride for stride with me right behind them. On the last rise of the finishing hill, I remember a parent off to the side yelling "Two for one, Addie!" Seconds from the line, I ended up ahead, and finished 3rd. The kick that I threw in was like the moment in the last Harry Potter book (oh yes, I most definitely will relate myself to HP :) where his wand acts of it's own accord and sends a golden stream of spells at where it senses Voldemort is.. well all right, so the only connection is that I'm not sure where that final kick came from; somewhere from deep within. We also closed the gap immensely on the 2nd place finisher, Teresa Murphy (Brunswick), but I didn't realize it until seeing pictures of the race this morning, because I'd been so focused. Mentally, I believe that I won the day. And winning the race mentally is so tremendously important for me in order to expect improvement later on down the road. Also, several other important things to touch on... Maryam actually got her LPR in the MILE yesterday, breaking her mile record (by a second, I believe it was)! And Josh Horne broke his LPR by over two minutes yesterday, going from a low 21, and skipping both the 19's and the 20's to finish in the high 18's. Justin Tracy ended up 4th, and is currently ranked 12th in the state. Awesome job, guys!
KKNW, Addie

Me (Addie Cullenberg), Kelly Lynch and Emma Wood. Thanks so much guys :D

ATTN Maine XC Coaches: I am truly flattered. Thank you! KKNW, Addie

KVAC's 2011

My race was not stellar. In fact, it was my most poorly-run race of the season. It was caused by a mixture of things. In the end, the biggest contributor was my mental state; remembering my awful race here last year, deciding halfway through the race that I felt the same as I did here a year ago.. I cruised by the first mile in a 6:12 nestled within a pack of girls; Abby Mace, Brittany Bowman, Willow Parker, Bethany Brown and Erzsebet Nagy. After that crucial landmark they began to drop me, and I remained only a few short steps behind them, but couldn't catch up. Once girls started to pass me, I completely lost it, saying to myself "It's just another B girl, it doesn't matter." What I should have said was "OK, the next person who makes a move I'm going to go with," because with the passing B girls eventually came the passing A girls. One reason I love the sport of cross country so much is the support you receive out there from girls on other teams. Once you've been running in high school a few years, they're all so familiar; Maine doesn't have a running community, it has a close-knit running family. Katie McMahon (Bruns) caught up to me mid-hill, and encouraged me to pass one of the runners up ahead with her. Molly Schassberger (Winslow) breathed "C'mon, Ad, you got this girl.." as she went by. So I extend my thanks to everyone out there who continued to encourage me. After the race, I was given a nice pep talk by a family friend whose kids go to Maranacook, and by and by my spirits lifted. All that there is left to say, is that I truly, honestly am very thankful that I shall never race on Cony's course again; too many horrid racing memories (my first time racing that course was in 8th grade for USATF; my mom and I didn't know the course and were doing a preview before my race and got lost. I got all worked up because we had to cut through the woods to the start, where my race was on the line almost ready to go. We can joke about it now, at least :). Mt. Blue girls ended up third behind Brunswick and Mt. Ararat, while the boys came in a rather disappointing 8th.. Regionals next weekend @ Belfast, and I'm ready for redemption.
KKNW, Addie


Madsy Schneider: "Darn, I've never made it onto the wood!"
Me: "Quick, step up on here for a second!" :)

Maryam Norton and Alex Luchini... The "onion" was a motivator for our JV girls team


Sam Wood (whom I've always secretly wanted as a little brother.. wow that sounds pretty creepy), a Hampden boy, Sully Jackson and Justin Tracy as Andy R-P hugs someone else during Class A awards.

Mt. Blue Relays 2011

It has recently dawned on me that this is my year of lasts with the Mt. Blue cross country team. It makes sense that it would be a bit sad for any graduating athlete, sure, but I feel like it's a little bit different in my case. If you were to go through my endless drawers of running shirts in my room, you'd be able to find specially ordered child's size shirts from the Mt. Blue Relays dating back to the 90's. Why? Because I've been wrapped up in the Maine running community way back since the days my mom used to push me in my lime green jogger at her track practices as she coached her athletes. I mean, I used to attend the annual Acadian camping trip in diapers and shyly pass out the ribbons at the Mt. Blue Relays awards ceremony. So knowing that this past Friday has been my last Relays ever is.. hard. Ok, enough nostalgia. This year had to be the muddiest Mt. Blue Relays in living memory. On Thursday, most of our practice was spent draining the water off of the muddy spots on the course and then shoveling kitty litter-like gravel onto those areas. But by the time I ran over those affected areas as the first leg of our team, the conditions were no better than before we'd started the previous day. (Oh, on a side note, there were 18 teams present, a MB Relays high). By the time I tagged off to our second runner, I'd literally eaten mud out on the course, because of the boys in front of me kicking it back as they trampled through the mess. Such a good time. I ended up having the second fastest girls time of the day to Bethany Brown of Waterville, and our girl's "A" team placed second to Mt. Ararat, with Waterville rounding up the top three. On the boy's side, Bangor won, Mt. Ararat was second, and our boys ended up third. After we finished, several members of the team decided to hit up the muddy places on the course, and ended up having a bit of a mud fight. Actually, it ended up being a bit more intense than that; at one point my cousin literally tackled me to the ground right in the middle of it all. By the time we left, anyone running over that section would really wonder what had happened there, as it appeared as though people had literally rolled around in the mud.. :D Dancing, as always, was sweet, and the dinner nice and pasta-ey. Once awards were over we quickly got bundled up in warmer clothes to go support the football team (it was homecoming game), which was followed by our homecoming dance. Needless to say, I think we all rested fairly well that night :) The video link is below, which was fantastically created by Brewer!
http://www.youtube.com/user/runsub5#p/u/0/wjV0_D1piGE
KKNW, Addie

A Festival Fit For Champions.

We were all as prepared as we could be for the mud and rain and wet that presented itself to us on Saturday. There's something catchy in the air at a big meet like this that gets everyone excited, regardless of the weather. I love being surrounded by 924 other athletes getting ready to race, or whatever crazy number it was this year. The day started out with the Canadian and American national anthems being sung beautifully by my fellow ARC running camp buddy, Grant Richards of Belfast. Lovely job!! The race order went unseeded, freshman, seeded (girls/boys respectively in each category). Watching the freshmen boy's race was really sad; there was one racer near the end who did not have spikes on, and was slip-and-sliding all over the part before the man-made hills. As the day progressed, it only got muddier (I refrain from saying "worse" because mud is what we live for). When the seeded girls were only a half mile into the race, we must have looked like some splatter-paint art project. Regardless of the conditions, the first mile on Belfast's course always proves to be incredibly fast, and although I was considerably back from the leader, Abbey Leonardi, I still managed to split a sub six first mile. During the race, I remember being a tad bit confused as to why I was running amongst fellow athletes that had previously run low 19 minute 5k's- especially when I clocked in at a 20:31- but had the conditions been a bit more ideal for PR's, I would have most likely crushed my LPR by over a minute. The idea of that is encouraging, but also makes me a bit stressed knowing that I still haven't actually run that time. When I crossed the line 12th, all I felt like doing was sitting down, despite the fact that every inch of grass out there that day was smothered in double the amount of mud. I didn't really care, but my uniform noticeably required a bit of washing after that meet. ARC really represented in terms of the top boys and girls teams overall that day. MDI girls and Falmouth boys won; a lot of those people had been fellow campers with me this summer in Acadia National Park. Also, nice job to Katherine Gunther, who placed in the top ten in the girls freshman race.
KKNW, Addie
Also, check out the videos from the meet, which can be found on the links below:
http://www.youtube.com/user/runsub5#p/u/2/asrrE8WAgzo (Boys seeded)
http://www.youtube.com/user/runsub5#p/u/1/Ixdsk5q8V6c (Girls seeded)