Racing to the Finish Line!

What a day for KES! Two simultaneous soccer games and 120+ cross country runners streaming past for either 3.5 km or 5 km races. Campus was very alive on Tuesday, and it was fantastic to be a part of the excitement.

   

Leading the way of all runners from all schools in terms of improvement year to year was Quinn Emery ‘22. An average improvement for the runners this year was about one minute, although some had no improvement, and one had close to two minutes. However, no one came close to Quinn as he improved his 2019 race time by three minutes and thirty seconds – way to go!

 

Our top performance today was Natalia Shaw ‘27 as she earned a silver medal position in her very first junior girls race of 3.5 km. I had wanted Natalia to have an easy jog warm-down after her race. She had a different desire as she then ran off to her soccer game! Also earning a podium position was KES rookie Paula Tschritter ‘23 as she was the third girl across the finish line of her grueling 5 km race. Also entering his first cross country race in a KES jersey and finishing just shy of the podium was Kenshin Hojo ‘27 in fifth place among the 47 strong junior boys’ field. It seems that the class of 2027 could be very good for KES XC!

 

We have this race once a year and for good reason – it's a difficult course to run for the students, and a difficult course to run for the adults. My appreciation goes to many, and if you see them, please thank them. The race couldn't happen without our best KES neighbours, Mr. Danny Dill of Dill Family Farm (no better place to buy a pumpkin) and Ms. Teresa Sanford on behalf of the Gladys M Manning Memorial Home. Both most kindly allow us to run our race across their properties. A special thank you to Mr. Marshall Davidson and Mr. John MacKay for their excellent trail and lawn work, and to Mr. Blake MacIntosh for his help on set-up. Thank you to our traffic crew, Ms. Sue Bouwman and Mr. Glen Faucher. Thank you to our finish line crew Ms. Shari Hadley, Graydon Spence ‘24, Wyatt Carling ‘22, and Mr. Steven Lee. They were ably led by chief timer, chief finish judge, starter and indispensable cross-country coach, Mr. Brodi Robinson. A very special thank you to our ‘mosquito crew’ in the deep trails: Catherine Banda ‘22, Maran Hawley ‘26, Jennifer Liang ‘22, Sebastian Feng ‘23, Freek Schep ‘22, Davit Poghosyan ‘22, Jessica Etou ‘24, and Arianna MacDonald ‘24. Thank you also to our chief of volunteer arm twisting, Ms. Taya Shields. Thank you for all your support behind the scenes, Mr. Kim Walsh and Mr. Joe Seagram.