Pre-season meets are an opportunity to shake off the rust from not racing since the track season.  Team and individual preparation for the serious racing ahead is one of the main goals of having a pre-season and every team and coach has a different perspective on how they prepare their teams for the more important meets ahead.  That’s why it’s always interesting to see which teams and individuals are already in race mode and which teams and individuals really need a pre-season to practice the preparation aspect of racing.  It’s fun to see which teams have chants, team huddle’s and those aspects of cross-country which make it just more than toeing the line and going through the motions. 

Over 215 athletes competed in the 35th Annual Lake Mary Mike Gibson Summertime Run on Saturday, August 22nd, on the campus of Lake Mary High School.

Hot humid conditions ruled the day.  Here are our 3 major takeaways from the meet.

1.  Lake Mary's Daniela Urzula is the real deal.  The Lake Mary Junior impressed us during the Spring track season and absolutely crushed the Summertime Run winning her first outing impressively in US#18 / FL#1 18:44.68. 

Not only did she crush the field, more impressively in my opinion is how much more she still had in the tank.  You'll have to see her race footage/post race interview as she literally stepped across the line to fathom, just how easy an effort her 18:44 was on that course.

SEE DANIELS'S RACE FOOTAGE/POST RACE INTERVIEW

SEE HER INTERVIEW

2.  Flagler Palm Coast's Justin Pacifico is more than just a middle distance beast.  Forget the time as his 16:45.82 won't raise very many eyebrow's when times are discussed later in the season.  More importantly was how he looked with 300 meters to go.  That tells me his strength has definitely carried over to the longer distance fom the track where he went 1:53.34 in the 800 at the Golden South Classic. 

Justin Pacifico - Flagler Palm Coast - photo by Dave Tibbitts (Oviedo HS)

I'm fairly confident this week's Spikes and Spurs Classic will be another "move at will" type scenario. 

3.  Depth.  My last takeaway is it just how competitive 4A will be once again.  Once the South Florida teams start racing, will Coral Reef and St. Thomas match up or exceed the Central Florida 4A teams we’ve seen this past weekend?  The secret is to have a solid top 5 and some depth as it's a long time from the Pre-Season to the State XC Finals on November 7th.

See the full results and vido interviews