The first mile saw Ryan Ripley take the lead from a field that included former Notre Dame and Lecanto runner and State 3200m Champ Sean McManus, Class 2A 3200m 2nd placer Alex Brutvan, Class 2A 3200m 3rd placer Dan Daly, Class 3A 2000 State 3200m Champ Adam Chumbley, 4:18.96 miler Vinny Ambrico, Class 4A 5th placer Daniel Martin and a host of others.

Ripley, running in his second race in four days(22 minute 4 miler on July 4th), continued to lead through the halfway point as the course wound its way through the single track paths at Whispering Pines Park(Martin passed the first mile in 5:06 so I imagine Ripley was slightly ahead at 5:00 or so). As the course took a sharp downhill, McManus and the chase group looked very comfortable as a group of five remained in contention.

The second half saw McManus open up a ten meter lead over Ripley( Martin passed the two mile in 10:24 so the leaders must have been close to 10:10-10:15 range). As they crested the last hill, Ripley was still within reach of McManus, but the over the last stretch, McManus maintained his advantage to win with a comfortable margin despite Ripley's fast finish. Daniel Martin overtook UF runner Corey Presnick before the hill and opened a 10 second lead over the last 600m to take third. Vinny Ambrico was caught in no man's land as he took fifth between the lead pack and the large group of high schoolers behind him.

The race behind him was probably the most exciting as Kevin Lyons, Dan Daly, Jaime Calzada, Jordan Adler, and Alex Brutvan battled from mile one on and crested the last hill at the same time. Lyons used a strong kick to separate himself from the group after the hill as the next four all finished within seven seconds.

In the girls race, Holly Hofer was the winner. Running behind early leaders Amber Presnick, Karen Blacher, Stevie Uribe and Tiffany Wisecup used even pacing to win easily in 21:51( Also, her second race in four days).

The race itself was great in all aspects. My congrats to Milton Lyons, and Colon Joiner for making the challenging course. Also, the postrace activitites included plenty of food, a video tape replay of the race and really cool awards( really unique in that they were four inch figurines of actual male and female runners. Not the generic guy who looks like a robot you see on most trophies).

The next race here will be August 4th and will be a tune up for the xc season. i'm sure it will be an excellent race and I hope to see more hgih school runners there after their summer camp training.