XC Championships 2023 at UVA
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Just FYI it is sold out at panorama farms and there is no onsite parking (lol) so they are busing 5000 people from the fashion square mall on a home football weekend.
Personally this sounds like a cluster but great opportunity to show off UVA. Go Hoos XC men’s and women’s!
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ACC really did UVA no scheduling favors. Shuttles are really the only option for that number of people out that way.
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Hotel is full of XC people. VOLS and A&M at the graduate
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The XC folks from the various schools obviously read that Bodo’s was the spot, so they filled up the location on Emmet early this morning. Clearly, a lot of them were excited to be there. Funny thing was that they formed the line winding through the seating area instead of out the door, so when regulars came in they looked like they had entered another universe.
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We had thought about going (daughter runs XC, and Panorama Farms is a gorgeous course) but decided it would be too much of a pain. I think that was the right call; it’s gonna be a madhouse. And putting a football home game on the same weekend, that was a really bad oversight.
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We did watch it on TV, and man, any time I watch a race like that, I just don’t understand how those guys do it. The winning runner’s 10K time is roughly my 5K time. And yeah I’m an old man and not a competitive runner, but still, doesn’t seem possible. They just flat-out sprint the whole way.
Pretty cool that we got to host.
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I took up running during the pandemic and my first recreational 5k race was at Panorama Farms. I was not ready to pace those hills properly.
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Quick story: My jr year of high school cross country team goes on a retreat/camp. I cant make it because of other commitments so the coach tells me “Hey since you are staying behind, we have this freshman coming who also can’t make it. Can you get in a few runs with him?”
Im like sure whatever and I go on a few runs with the guy and he seems like a solid kid and adequately fast. Come the end of summer workouts we do a 5k on the track. I notice the kid coming up from behind on a lap when I had two laps left and I was like “Oh can’t let him catch up to me” so I start sprinting way to early. I look back and the kid stopped running. I thought he was injured for a second before I realized he was just done… as in he was a whole lap ahead of me and I didn’t even realize LOL.
Kid was Sean McGorty. Dude was runner up at national cross country championships and won the two mile in outdoor track. Also won penn relays 4x800 I believe. Went to stanford and has dealt with some injuries since then.
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His brother who I met was also pretty fast: ran a 1:48 800m at an event held at UVA
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Track gets a bad rap for being boring, but its actually a ton of fun to watch. There are a ZILLION kids doing stuff so there are also tons of parents to chat with and there’s always multiple things going on.
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Sean ran both the 5K and 10K for USA at the World Championships this summer.
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Track is fun to watch. Indoor track is actually really fun, with lots going on at once. XC is incredibly boring to watch. At most you’re seeing runners, what? Twice? Unless the layout of the course stinks.
Watched the marathon recently, for a few family members running, and it’s 10 minutes of stress trying to find them in a crowd, followed by three seconds of cheering and giving them a thumbs up.
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