If given the choice between sub-50 degree temperatures with rain, or 80 degrees and sunny, the answer for most is obvious.
Those were the options presented to junior Ethan Hardy one day after he and the Ridgewood boys cross country team — along with two runners from the Rebels’ girls cross country team — competed in the cold, rain-soaked Class 2A U-High Sectional on Saturday, Oct. 31.
Hardy chose the first option, however, when asked which he’d rather run in.
“Definitely not 80 degrees,” Hardy said. “I would take [Saturday, Oct. 31]. Maybe without so much rain. But just a little bit of a drizzle and 45 degrees is pretty nice. It’s good running weather.”
The conditions at the U-High Sectional were the worst Tony Guagenti said he has seen in his three years as Ridgewood’s boys and girls cross country coach. A cold rain poured throughout much of the day, including during the boys sectional race, yet Guagenti “thought we ran pretty darn well.”
Three runners recorded personal bests, he said, including Hardy (89th, 19:12.64) and junior Danny Kuri (64th, 17:48.68) in the boys race, and junior Kinga Sojka (66th, 22:38.45) in the girls race. The majority of the Rebels’ other runners turned in either their second- or third-best times of the season, Guagenti added.
Sophomore Kieran Moore (42nd, 16:58.69) led the boys team. He was followed by Kuri, senior Adonis Silva (81st, 18:52.52), sophomore Kurt DeLong (87th, 19:11.10) and Hardy. Sophomore Malek Rubi (22:56.88) finished 116th, and junior Alex Woloz (23:19.73) was one position behind him. The Ridgewood boys finished 12th as a team.
Junior Lina Hawari (22:04.79) finished 60th overall in the girls race, which Sojka said was run in a light drizzle instead of a downpour like the boys race that followed. Ridgewood didn’t advance anybody to the Class 2A state cross country meet.
“It was pretty much pouring the whole time,” Hardy said. “Really terrible weather, but as a runner, that’s sort of stuff that you’ve got to get used to and stuff that you’ve got to enjoy.”
That was the essence of Guagenti’s message to Ridgewood’s runners before the race.
“Mentally, you’ve got to just say, ‘It’s no big deal because I’m wet, and everybody else is wet.’ You’ve just got to deal with it,” Guagenti said. “If you let that affect your mental state before the race ever starts, or during it, then you’ve already been defeated, in a way.”
Sojka, when asked about her mentality at the sectional, added: “Like the coach says, every weather is perfect for a cross country race. That’s what I think: The weather doesn’t matter. You’re just there to run.”
Not only were the runners wet at the U-High Sectional, the grass was soggy and competitors were prone to falling in spots. Hardy was one of the runners who fell. He and DeLong were running together when they turned a corner and encountered the most treacherous part of the course — a section where Hardy said “there’s all this mud” about 100 meters from the finish line.
As they went through it, Hardy slipped and fell backward. Hardy’s fall didn’t allow him to finish his race as strongly as he wanted to, yet he still earned a personal best by about 17 seconds.
“It was really a bummer,” Hardy said. “Really, really disappointing [to fall] … but I ended up being satisfied with [my race], because I got right back up and finished.”
Eric Van Dril is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter: @VanDrilSports
