The Best Meet of the Year

 

The Eastern Massachusetts divisional meet is the best meet of the cross country season. The state meet is the holy grail for the best teams in the state, but it is an exclusive club with only two winners (large and small school) and only a few legitimate contenders. The excitement, nervousness, and anxiety that go with being in reach of a hard-earned goal is left for just a very few teams. For the rest, they are generally just happy to be there.

 

Not so for the division meet. Dozens of teams have high hopes for this day. Of course teams will be gunning to be the champs of their divisions, but in some ways the real excitement will be in the battle for the final all-state qualifying berths. It's a lot like the Olympic trials. Being the US champ is huge, but the real agony is not in finishing second, it is reserved for the athlete who is left home.

 

So the Haverhill girls will be looking at Weymouth. Weymouth will be eying Newton South.

 

Oh, there are teasers during the season along the way. Invitationals like Bay State, and Twilight will pit some teams against another, giving each team some idea of the competition. But in these races while some teams are running to win, others skip the race, and still others will be training through it, working on strategy, or gaining experience for newer runners. The out of state invitationals are fun too - a race on unknown courses and with unknown teams. But nobody buys team jackets that say "fastest Massachusetts team in the Ocean State Invitational". No, the accomplishments that are worthy of being worn will be found at Franklin Park this year.

 

So Peabody will be glancing over at Andover, who in turn will be watching Lexington.

 

Once the league championship meets start, the teams begin to harden and the training gets more focused, the runners begin to peak. And then the best of each league will come together, to battle teams they may have heard about but not have yet faced, not really anyway. The unknown heightening the excitement, fear, and anticipation, because this time it's for real.

 

The Brookline boys have skirmished with Lowell, and now is the time they get serious. Can the Acton-Boxborough boys run with the big boys? Or are they just the best the Dual County League has to offer? We'll find out because the time for talk is done.

 

Even teams that are heavy favorites in their division, like the Whitman-Hanson girls in division 3, will be watching the other races to see how their eventual foes at the all-state meet fare. Their anticipation of the unknown is still a week away. The real race in division 3 will be between Wellesley and Oliver-Ames, Notre-Dame and Concord-Carlisle, North Attleboro and Natick, because the season is over for some of them.

 

Then there is Pembroke, Bishop Feehan, and Sandwich. Mansfield, Chelmsford, Lincoln-Sudbury, and Marshfield.

 

Its a carnival atmosphere, with school tents lining the course and the colors from hundreds of teams dotting the landscape like an impressionist painting. A dozen races each filled with its own story and drama. The New England November weather will add its own panache to the proceedings, perhaps providing a sunny beautiful racing day, or providing a cold deluge. Or snow. One race will be taking off with a hundred runners flying across the infield into the first turn walled in by spectators. When the pack passes there is a brief lull before shouts and screams and tears arise as the results from the earlier races get posted, and teams find out if they qualified or their season has ended.

 

Yes, the best meet of the year. Well, at least until the following week.