Home cookin’

Random thoughts on another successful home meet today at Bowdoin Park:

--Enough praise cannot be heaped on assistant coach Terry Horton for putting this meet together so quickly and so well, after Irene did her damage at Bowdoin. The course was well-marked and very runnable, just six days after a tropical storm. Nicely done.

--I was more involved in the last-minute meet planning and execution this year than in the past, as Terry has pretty much done everything soup to nuts most years. But since he had to basically reinvent the wheel in five days, I got more involved. Let me tell you: It’s a lot of work! So again, thanks to Terry for his incredibly smooth meet management.

--Bathrooms! Terry has keys to everything at Bowdoin … except the bathrooms, which were not opened until after 8 a.m. This caused some inconveniences, but we all managed just fine. We’ll have to make sure we have bathroom access earlier next year.

--Bib numbers! I was so wrapped up in the final stages of marking the course and shuttling nervous bladdered athletes to other Bowdoin bathrooms that … I forgot to hand out the race numbers to the men’s team. Ooops. They got them in time.

--Speaking of bathrooms: Our boy Quimes DelaCruz – the race winner, by the way – nearly missed the start because of a late bathroom visit. It wasn’t all Q’s fault. We had said we were starting the men’s race at 10:05 a.m. But official starter Ken Kraft – I dare you to find a better and more knowledgeable track official ANYWHERE – gathered the men to the line a little before 10 a.m. There was a reason for this: Ken had to dart across town to start the Vassar XC Invitational at 10:30 a.m.; our original start time was 9:45 a.m. So he wanted to move things along. Q made it to the line on time, and obviously made it to the finish line on time as well.

--Food! We sure had plenty, didn’t we? At one point in the morning, I wondered to myself what would happen to all this food. Magically, it disappeared quickly. No worries about leftover food with this team. Thanks to the parents who took it upon themselves to clean up the pavilion area. And to the voracious athletes who brought the rest of the food home with them.

--Parents, family and friends. This is always a highlight for me at meets, but never more than at our home meet, when the support and encouragement is at its peak. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

--A special thanks to 2002 Marist Running Alum Mike Nehr for driving up from his Long Island home to support our team. Mike is now a successful teacher and coach on Long Island, and he has bridged the Marist Running Generation Gap by getting to know our current Long Island-based Running Red Foxes. Thank you!

--Administrative support was excellent. All of our athletic administrators were there, and I think they truly enjoyed their stay at Bowdoin. It was great to have them on board. It may be one of the few home athletic events in which they are not that stressed out about the organization and running of the competition – again, because our guy Terry had it all under lock-down control.

--Senior Day: Thanks to Sports Information Director Mike Ferraro and Assistant AD Frank Lombardy for coordinating this very nice tribute to our seniors. While it is a bit unorthodox to start the year with a senior day, it is our only opportunity to honor our seniors. Several parents commented how difficult it is for them to fathom that their children are months away from graduation. After 21 years of this, I will chime in that is does fly by. Even still, we have all senior year to enjoy each other’s company and hopefully make some Marist Running history together.

OK! Results and analysis of results to come in the next posts …