A small sign on Lowell Road, indicating the entrance to the campus, is the only evidence that the Middlesex School is tucked untouched in the woods of Concord. The splashing colors of the changing leaves, along with brick buildings and manicured playing fields makes for a quintessential New England setting.
The miles of paths that meander through the tranquil woods adjacent to the private school makes for superb training runs for the school’s cross country team, undefeated in the Independent School League with a heady record of 11-0. “We’re so fortunate to have great places to run,” said head coach Jim Beaton, an English teacher at the school. “They can get in great workouts without having to go on the roads at all.” Those workouts have resulted in some fabulous results for the Middlesex harriers. The team’s top three runners competed in the recent Manhattan Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park in New York and went a long way in getting the Middlesex name out at a national level. Defending ISL champion James Randon of New Canaan, CT surged across the finish line for a sterling 12:26.7 win in the Varsity A race, averaging a cool 4:58 mile pace in the process. Weston’s Garrett O’Toole, who gives Middlesex the best 1-2 combination in the ISL with Randon, ran 12:38.7 for third and junior Peter Howe battled through asthma problems to crack the top 20 with a 26th-place finish in 13:18.5.
For Randon, a terrific talent who prides himself in being a fearless front-runner, the win in New York was not a surprise. He’s eager to keep the momentum going after sickness made for a frustrating 2011 campaign on the trails.“I’ve never had a win on the national or regional scale,” said Randon on an Indian Summer afternoon before practice. “When I ran at Foot Locker last year it was my first big meet. It wasn’t my best race. We didn’t really peak towards that. We ran for our league championship. My whole season last year was out of whack because I had mono to begin the season for the first couple of weeks. I don’t think I had a good shot at running at a high, competitive level.”Randon was more than ready for a breakthrough performance at Van Cortlandt. He scouted the field beforehand and knew there was no one in the race who would be strong enough to run away from him from the start. With that in mind and O’Toole in tow, he went out at a hard, but controlled pace, confident he could attack the challenging 3.1-mile layout and have plenty left for a sprint finish. Most importantly, though, was securing a win. “I wanted to go for the win,” said Randon. “We saw there were a few good guys in the race. My plan was to go out and hammer out a win. I wasn’t going for time, just the win. Garrett and I went out together. No one was with us through that first hilly section.” Randon needed just one move to break the race open and clinch the much sought after win. “When we crossed the bridge (into the Back Hills) Liam Mullett (of the Pingree School) caught up to us and he was breathing really hard,” said Randon. “We stayed together for most of that loop. When we started to go downhill I made a move and had about a 20 or 30 yard lead. I knew they were still there. I tried to stay cool and kept going. I always try to finish strong.”
O’Toole, too, had no qualms with being at the front of such a big race and was primed to help get the Middlesex name noticed. “It’s a 400 meter dash to get a good spot before you hit the woods,” said O’Toole, who began running as a youngster growing up in Montreal. “We took that and ran with it. We went out pretty hard and that really solidified our position for the opening mile. I was looking at the times from last year, which may have been a slower year, but there didn’t seem to be many runners breaking 13 (minutes) so that was my goal going in. I wanted to mix it up with the top guys.”
Howe’s asthma began to act up in the final kilometer and he dropped from eighth to a still-shining 16th. The junior has been seeing a specialist in the hopes of getting the problem under control. Although frustrated, Howe was still happy with his effort overall. “I’m working with it and doing the best I can to help the team,” How said. “I think I’m going to have a lot to prove in track. I want to run 9:15 in the 2 miles. I have some big goals I want to reach. It’s exciting to race with this team.” Despite the asthma, Howe believes he is in the perfect situation at Middlesex. He not only has Randon and O’Toole pushing him hard during workouts, but freshman Viraj Deokar of Acton, last year’s state middle school cross country champion, has been challenging Howe all fall. “It’s awesome,” he said. “Having someone in front of you to work with is so huge. I owe so much of my success and enjoyment of the sport to those two guys. It’s great running with guys who are better than you. “Sometimes we’re all at the front and they take off and I’m looking to get third. That’s where I want to be. I want to be the next best guy. If I find myself a little nervous during a race I think to myself, ‘Ok, this is just like practice.’ We’ve done this so many times. We’re out running it’s just us. And Viraj ran faster than all of us in the ninth grade. It’s going to be really exciting to see what he does.”
The Middlesex harriers have been putting in strength work since the summer and won’t begin to taper until the big, November races. One particular workout entails repeat runs over a mile-long hill two miles from the campus. “That’s
our big workout,” said Howe. “For a few Wednesdays in the middle of the season we’ll have some tough workouts where we’ll run up the hill as hard as we can. The most we’ve done is five, but we do that at a controlled pace. We’ve done sprints up it as well at different distances. It’s a great tool we use and as a result we’re pretty strong hill runners.” Howe can’t think of a better setting to put in the type of training needed to excel on the trails and track. “Concord is built on history,” said Howe thoughtfully. “Being able to run on these historic roads is pretty cool. It’s a pretty suburban area. I want to keep improving. We do a lot of core training. Having a strong overall core certainly takes stress off the legs and your body is working more in unison. It’s huge for injury prevention and finishing strong in races. We train our bodies to be very relaxed and comfortable with that fast pace.”
O’Toole is a big advocate of putting the miles in over the summer to reap the benefits in the autumn months. ““As a team, we put in a lot of miles during the summer before we come out and race,” he said. “We’re very strong runners and we work on developing our finishes. I think that’s one of my strong points.” Randon had his strongest summer ever. Save for a minor bout of plantar fasciitis that sidelined him for couple of weeks, he averaged 50 miles and week with a high of 75 in August. Randon has been heavily recruited and definitely wants to attend a strong Div. 1 program. His victory in New York was solid proof that he can compete on the national stage and he has several goals before advancing to the collegiate level. “I want to run well at Foot Locker or Nike, depending on where we go,” said Randon.
As an ISL school, Middlesex doesn’t get the exposure that Massachusetts’ public schools receive, but the guys admit they keep an eye on the pulse of cross country in the commonwealth. They met and ran with several of the state’s best schoolboy harriers at camp in the summer and a mutual respect was hatched. O’Toole, for one, would relish the opportunity to race against the public schools to see just where he stood against the publics. “Obviously our league is a little smaller,” said O’Toole. “We savor our chances to go out and run against the competition in the area, like we did in Manhattan. Sometimes it’s a little tough to see those guys have great races. (At camp) we got to see them as real people, not just their names and times.” Randon and Beaton are excited by the momentum the cross country program has garnered at Middlesex. The team boasts more than 40 runners whose workouts are geared to their fitness and talent level. Improvement is inevitable if the harriers stay with the program. “It’s great to see the program growing,” said Randon. “When I first came around we had one guy who could break 18 minutes. I was going back and forth on whether to do cross country or soccer.”
Beaton believes in the long-term approach with the athletes and its success is evident with the team’s perfect record and big-meet performance by its top three harriers in the Bronx “They’re wonderful kids” Beaton said of his harriers. “They’re good-hearted kids. It’s great for them to run well on a national course that everyone recognizes. Cross country is one of those sports where it’s a great team to be new on. Everyone’s very supportive. It’s all very clear. It’s very clear how hard you work and how fast you run. It’s not open to interpretation. It’s pretty straight forward. “We have kids arriving at the school with more running and racing experience than ever before. There are kids coming here with their resumes. There’s a lot more energy and it’s contagious. Other kids are hearing about the program a little bit. We’re having kids show up with the kind of commitment to running that hasn’t been seen in the past. And it’s largely because these kids are generating some interest.”
And of course, the will to win has permeated through the roster. “We haven’t loss yet and we don’t plan on it,” said O’Toole. “We’re having a great season.”