On September 1, the ILH cross-country season opened with a practice meet at Waipio soccer peninsula. This meet is always very casual with no scoring. It is a good way to get everyone reacquainted with running and competing in the meets each week.
Weather-wise we were lucky. Yes, the course was wet, muddy and slow from torrential rains the night before, but at least the rain stopped before the 9am start.
There were 5 races - boys intermediates (2 miles), girls intermediates (2 miles), girls open (2 miles), jv/varsity boys (3 miles) and varsity girls (3 miles).
I admit that I pay much more attention to the girls races. Sorry guys. But, when you have 2 daughters running that tends to happen.
There has been a lot of anticipation on the girls' side of cross-country this year. Probably on the boys side too but I don't really know about it.
Some big things have happened on the girls side since last year. Julie (Maryknoll) is not running this year. Last year she was the dominant runner in the state. Also, Katie (Iolani) moved to the mainland due to a family relocation. Katie was a promising runner who will be missed greatly by Iolani.
There are also some new faces in the varsity ranks this year. Kimberly Pugliese, a top intermediate runner, is now a 9th grader and has transferred to Iolani. Kimberly will be a force. Also, Lea Lundblad, last year's Iolani Invitational winner at both Intermediate races, is now a varsity runner. Some think she will win States this year. She just might. Then there is Maile (Iolani) who is new to the running world. She had a very good track season last year and will also be in the mix at the top.
So, what happened on Saturday? A veteran of the running world, Haley Abing (Maryknoll, La Pietra), held off Maile in the closest finish of the day to win by about 1 yard. Kim and Jenna (both of Iolani) were close on Maile's heels. Maryknoll and Iolani dominated the top 20.
But, and this is a big but, Punahou did not run in the varsity race as they elected to run their varsity in the 2 mile open. Also, Kamehameha looked like they were just using this race as a normal training run.
In other words, some of the girls who I expect to be there at the end of the season, weren't in the varsity race, either at all or because they weren't really trying. There will be many changes as the season progresses.
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