Set A Watch: Heps 2012

Matt and Steve asked me to write a guest post for our new blog and I'm excited to be able to share my experience at Heps with the world (or at least the 3 people that read this), so here goes. First, a little background...

If you're unfamiliar, Heps is the Ivy League's conference championship. Anthony Schurz wrote a great article on what makes Heps such a special meet, and I'm compelled to agree with him on all points. Every fall, Heps is one of the most important dates on the calendar. As a team, our focus when we set out to do our first distance run of the summer is four months away, on that cool (or possibly blizzardy) October day.

This season hasn't been without its bumps in the road. We came away from the Wisconsin Invitational not with the at-large points we sought, but with a high ankle sprain for John Bleday '14. Expectations were mixed coming into Heps - the internet peanut gallery decided fourth would be a good day without John, while our own College newspaper misquoted me guaranteeing a victory over Harvard.

While we didn't have the race of a lifetime that we would have needed to pull off the victory, PRs from five of the top seven is a pretty good day. We ended up in third place with 77 points, behind Princeton (26!) and Columbia (58). Phil continued his new habit of knocking 30 seconds off his season best every time he races, and Steve even decided to try! Here are our results from the fast Princeton course:

5. Will Geoghegan '14, 23:54.2
6. Phil Royer '13, 23:57.6
17. Steve Mangan '14, 24:14.8
23. Dylan O'Sullivan '15, 24:25.6
27. Jonathan Gault '13, 24:30.3
30. Curtis King '16, 24:32.3
41. Henry Sterling '14, 24:49.3
45. Silas Talbot '15, 24:56.8
47. Brian Masterson '16, 24:57.6
51. Adam Doherty '13, 25:00.1
54. Mike Danaher '13, 25:03.8

We ran well at Heps, but I think I speak for everyone on the team when I say we can't wait for Regionals, and that the best is yet to come.

Some photos (courtesy Tim Mangan):