The Live Oak, Gilroy, and Sobrato High School cross-country
teams held a Fun Run on Friday at Christmas Hill park in
Gilroy.
By Paul Doherty
Gilroy – The Live Oak, Gilroy, and Sobrato High School cross-country teams held a Fun Run on Friday at Christmas Hill park in Gilroy.
JV and Varsity runners competed in a two and a half mile and a three mile run in the scorching afternoon sun.
The meet, scheduled for 3:30pm, was pushed back until 4:30pm in hopes the weather might cool down a bit into the evening, but the hot weather was still one of the biggest challenges for the runners.
Two of Gilroy’s finest varsity girls runners, Patty Hernandez and Kathleen Miller, who would normally be competing in the longer race, ran the two and a half mile due to injuries.
Miller took fourth in CCS last year as a sophomore. Friday she finished in first place with a time of 17:48, despite coping with a knee injury. Hernandez, who finished in second with a time of 17:55, has been running with shin splints.
“It was hot, but I felt all right,” Hernandez said. “We just paced off each other and tried to stay together.”
Gilroy co-head coach Kathy Silva said the fun-run is meant to get the runners back on the track and just to get times to gauge how they look going into the season.
“It’s the beginning of the season and we’re babying them a little bit to keep them healthy,” Silva said of Hernandez and Miller.
The other co-head coach at Gilroy, Art Silva, said his girls team is going to be awesome this year.
“They are so dedicated. The good thing is that they are such good students,” he said, referring to the Gilroy girls winning the state academic title last year.
Live Oak coach Dean Raymond commended the work of Gilroy’s coaches.
“(Art) has taken a program that was pretty much in shambles and turned it around, he and Kathy, and they’re ahead of us now,” Raymond said.
Christina Schmidt, the lone senior on Gilroy’s team, took it upon herself during the summertime to call other girls to get together and go run, Art Silva said.
“My wife and I were on vacation, and she took charge, and three to five times a week she would get the girls together and they would run three to five miles a day,” he said. “So now at the start of the season, they’re already in shape.”
Sobrato’s Lance Wolfsmith started out the race in the front of the pack and finished at the same position.
“It was hot … legs are feeling good …We kind of know how each other run,” Wolfsmith said in reference to Gilroy’s Derek Pesta, who was pacing for him a bit. “I knew we’d run together for a little bit and then I’d separate, but I didn’t really know when.”
There’s still a lot of room for improvement though.
“Going into the run I felt pretty strong, but on the other side of the hill it’s pretty hot,” Pesta said. “But I just tried to stay strong and keep pumping it. I took it a little easier than I normally would have.”
“It’s a good introductory meet,” Raymond said. “It gives some of the runners who haven’t competed in high school a chance to compete under pressure.”
Final Times: Boys Three mile:
1. Lance Wolfsmith, Sobrato, 16:36.
2. Derek Pesta, Gilroy, 17:03.
3. Alan Rios, Sobrato, 17:37.
The top Live Oak finisher was Anthony Macadeg in sixth place at 18:38.
Girls Three Mile:
1. Jessica Hopf, Gilroy, 20:24.
2. Alex Seda, Sobrato, 20:58.
3. Abhi Devaraj, Sobrato, 21:31.
Top Live Oak Finisher was Pauline Olsen in 4th place at 21:42.
