San Mateo County runners prep for upcoming cross country season

And sometimes that can affect off-season training.

“A lot of people these days like to travel, so it’s hard to get a core group of kids to train during the off-season,” said Eric Wilmurt, Menlo-Atherton head cross country coach.

Unlike football, cross country runners are allowed to participate in their sport before the season. Some runners may spend the summer competing for club track teams, while others are simply putting in the miles ahead of high school cross country races.

Wilmurt said many of the hardcore cross country runners from several schools will come together to go on group runs in the summer. But he also said those schools that have strong cross country programs have coaches who will devise off-season training regimens. He said he’ll write up workouts for his runners, based on their experience. Not all runners fit into the same box and it’s up to coaches to make sure their athletes are training the right way.

“Without a structure for them to follow, anything will happen — it could be good and it could be bad,” Wilmurt said. “If you don’t give them any guidelines … the team won’t be ready to run.”

The M-A girls’ team should certainly be ready to run in 2022. The Bears graduated only two runners from their 2021 PAL championship squad, one that saw them finish in a tie for second place in the CCS Division I championship.

Tatum Olesen, a rising junior, should be in the running for a PAL title and should be a contender in CCS as well. She finished third at the 2021 PAL championships and set a personal record at the CCS meet with a time of 18:29.3 to finish fourth in the Division I race — which was the 14th fastest time in all of CCS last season.

“She’s already one of the top runners in the Bay Area,” Wilmurt said.

Katie Lorenz, who enters her senior year, was ninth at CCS and started a run of three straight M-A finishers: Lorenz ran an 18:40.9, she was followed by Sofia Melani, who was 10th and Annie Pflaum finished 11th. Both Melani and Pflaum are incoming juniors.

“Each one of them, they’ve all been one of our top runners at one time or another (the last couple years),” Wilmurt said. “We just need to keep them healthy and happy and enjoying the sport.”

Other female runners to watch in San Mateo County include Crystal Springs’ incoming senior Kaiya Brooks, whose time of 18:37.9 was good for second place in the CCS Division V championship race, which helped Crystal Springs to a third-place finish in the DV team standings.

Sacred Heart Prep’s Julia Soderbery, another rising senior, finished third in the CCS Division IV championship race with a time of 19:35.8, helping the Gators to a second-place finish at CCS.

Both Brooks and Soderbery will be contenders for the West Bay Athletic title, as well.

Boys' cross country

The race for the top boys’ team in San Mateo County should … well … be a horse race between a trio of private schools. Crystal Springs won its seventh straight CCS Division V title last season and the bulk of that team returns this season.

Led by rising sophomore Ben Bouie, who finished third in the CCS Division V race, Crystal Springs will be well positioned to be strong again in 2022. He will be joined by senior Furious Clay, other sophomores Oliver Boesch, Tarik Baker and Ilya Kipalov, and junior Dean Wu — all of whom finished in the top-20 in the CCS Division V race last year.

The Nueva School finished second behind Crystal Springs last season. The Mavericks graduated their two top runners. Joshua Byun, who was 10th at CCS, is the top returner.

There is also perennial power Menlo School, which will be led by the Pretre brothers, again, this season: senior Justin and sophomore Landon Pretre. All three teams should battle it out for WBAL superiority this season and contend for CCS Division IV and V titles.

In the PAL, it looks like it might come down to a two-team race between Sequoia and Menlo-Atherton. At this point, given last year’s results, Sequoia has the best chance to contend for the league title. The Ravens finished just behind 2021 league champ Woodside and with the Wildcats losing a bulk of its talent to graduation, a stacked Sequoia team is hoping to take that next step to the top of the PAL.

But the Ravens have much bigger aspirations this season. Led by the Bae twins, seniors Ethan and Jackson, this year’s runners have made it a goal to qualify for the 2022 state meet.

“Since about 20 minutes after CCS (last season), we started talking about state,” said Sequoia head coach Kelly Walker. “None (of the Sequoia runners) have been to state before. That is absolutely the goal. We have a lot lined up to make it possible.”

Jackson Bae had the better run at the PAL championships, finishing seventh. Ethan Bae performed better at CCS, finishing 24th.

Walker is also expecting big things from sophomore Zacharie Vidana, who ran in CCS last year and participated in a Nike running camp this summer. She said the boys’ team put in the work this summer, even spending a week together training in the mountains.

Walker, along with other coaches, believes the first normal offseason in three years will be beneficial for everyone involved. Even more so for Sequoia as Walker did not take over the program until about a week after classes started in 2021.

She gave a lot of credit to last year’s seniors for helping make her transition to new head coach as smooth as possible and, now that she is established, the team can really focus on just running cross country this year.

“We’re in a really good space this year. We put in a training regime this year which we didn’t have last year,” Walker said. “It feel like a completely different season. … [Athletes] were carrying a lot with them outside of cross country last year, when we had a 20% injury rate by Sept. 1st.

“Across the board … everybody is in a better place. Everyone is, mentally, more prepared.”