The Revere High School (RHS) Girls Cross Country team competed in their annual Legends meet, where many team members hit personal records.
The Legends meet was held on October 5 at the Trumbull County Fairgrounds, and was the last meet before the District Championships. The invitational provides an opportunity for runners to not only hit their personal records, but also rank against others competing.
Because of the success that many runners find at Legends, it is one of the most beloved meets of the year. Although they competed in a different division than usual, the team still performed well.
Girls Cross Country coach Kevin Somerville explained what Legends is and how it differs from other meets.
“It’s a cross-country invitational, similar to a lot of the meets that we do on the weekends, but it’s our last invitational before our league championships every year, so we’re always in great shape for it,” Somerville said.
Somerville disclosed why the course is so popular with the team and what opportunities the meet brings.
“It is a pretty flat course. We’ve gotten some really good times there so the girls are really excited to get there because there’s a really good chance they could get a PR there,” Somerville said.
Somerville disclosed the results of the meet, and how it challenged the runners.
“We were top 10 out of 43 teams. It was exciting to get that kind of pressure,” Somerville said.
Somerville explained what he did to prepare the runners for the meet, and what he focused on to ensure their readiness.
“We did a little bit less running but things were a little bit faster. We did some things to just let the team kind of discuss goals and have a good perspective leading up to it. And I think they were all in a great headspace that day before the meet and that day,” Somerville said.
Somerville described a challenge throughout the season that led the team to shift their mindsets.
“Well, we’ve had some injuries on the team. And so that’s hard to kind of shift our perspective…. Caroline had been our best runner throughout the season and she’s been off her feet injured and so that has us adjusting to team goals,” Somerville said.
Somerville explored the kinds of changes the team had to make to their approach due to injuries throughout the season.
“It goes from trying to think about, ‘Can we try to earn a trophy at a race?’ to just ‘How can we push ourselves to the best result we can get with the lineup we’ve got?’” Somerville said.
Girls Cross Country Coach Jerry Somerville spoke about how they combatted Legends being on the same day as Homecoming.
“Coach Somerville talked to the people at Legends and they gave us permission to run in the morning with a different group of schools,” Jerry Somerville said.
Caroline Wilson, a junior Cross Country runner at RHS, identified the difference between this division and the one in which they typically run.
“This year, we were in a different division race because of Homecoming, so we were in the smaller school division, which was actually more competitive than the larger school division,” Wilson said.
Wilson touched on the runners’ dedication to the Legends meet, and their decision to participate.
“Coach was like, ‘Well, we may as well just do a different one,’ and we were like, ‘No, we have to do this one,’ because it was such an important race to everybody,” Wilson said.
Wilson explained a personal accomplishment that came out of this year’s meet.
“I was told that my third mile was one of the best third miles I’ve done, and it’s out of… 3.1 miles,” Wilson said.
Wilson shared what she has learned from running Cross Country.
“Whether you had a good race or not at the Legends meet, that doesn’t really define your season or who you are as a runner,” Wilson said.
Wilson explained that she has grown as a runner since her freshman year, and how her teammates helped her find success.
“When I was a freshman, I was definitely hard on myself, and all the seniors were always there for me and I think that the freshmen who are hard on themselves right now are learning from all the older kids, because it’s such a shift from doing sports when you were younger and then doing sports in high school,” Wilson said.
Somerville described the overall success of the meet.
“The whole day was a big win. The weather was great. We had a couple of injuries… but we were fresh. In spite of that, we still placed really well,” Somerville said.
Jerry Somerville talked about the most important thing to a coach in any meet.
“From a coach’s perspective, you’re always going into a meet and you want to have a good time and enjoy the girls, enjoy the atmosphere and everything,” Jerry Somerville said.
The team plans to continue to run at Legends for years to come, yet they hope to avoid the injuries and scheduling conflicts that this year brought
