Manhattan
XC 2006
By ELLIOTT DENMAN
NEW YORK, Oct. 14 – Six more weeks and one-tenth of a second.
That’s the long and the short of it, the crux of a sizzling scenario
that cross country fans can’t wait to see unfold. Sensational
seniors Tommy Guenewald of Fayetteville-Manlius, N.Y. and Craig Forys
of Colts Neck, N.J. played out Acts 1-A and 1-B yesterday at the 34th
annual Manhattan High School Invitational over the classic 2.5-mile
Van Cortlandt Park course.
It was high drama, the focal
point of the famed Manhattan meet that attracted over 10,600 runners
from 16 states to a 37-race, seven-hour program, offering 3.935 prizes,
run off with military precision by a small army of veteran officials.
In back-to-back, separate-but-generally-equal
races starting just 12 minutes apart, Colts Neck’s Forys blazed
around the route in 12 minutes, 10.7 seconds to win the Varsity E Division
and demolish the boys Van Cortlandt record of 12:15.7 by Brad Hudson
of North Hunterdon of Annandale, NJ that had endured since 1983, only
to see Fayetteville-Manlius’s Gruenewald follow it up with a 12:10.6
victory in Varsity F.
”Incredible running,”
meet announcer Ian Brooks called it. And so said virtually every other
spectator - coaches, fellow athletes, families and friends - on the
scene at the giant park at the north end of the Bronx.
In the process, the scene
was set for the rematch of these red-hot, green-shirted stars that will
become one of the most anticipated clashes in recent scholastic XC history.
And so, while Forys focuses on the job of winning everything in sight
in New Jersey from here on out, starting with the Monmouth County Championships
Tuesday at Holmdel Park, and Gruenewald concentrates on dominating the
New York State scene, the 42-day buildup to the return duel is sure
to captivate anyone and everyone who follows this sport.
Act 2 is scheduled for Nov.
25 back here at Van Cortlandt Park. While the field for the Footlocker
Northeast Regional Championships (over the longer 5,000-meter/ 3.1-mile
course) is bound to include an array of other leading performers, it
is Forys and Gruenewald already certain to hog the spotlight.
Many in the crowd yesterday originally thought that Forys and Gruenewald
had run each other to a virtual tie a dozen minutes apart, each crossing
the line with the overhead digital finish-line clock seeming to read
12:10.
Even though the race was
hand-timed, the tie was broken with a reading of the printouts that
said Gruenewald had crossed in 12:10.59 and Forys in 12:10.65. Since
hand-held times are always rounded up to the nearest 10th of a second.
Gruenewald’s clocking became 12:10.6 and Forys’ time 12:10.7.
While Gruenewald won the
Varsity F individual gold by a huge margin - Fayetteville-Manlius teammate
Geoff King was a distant second in 12:39.6 - Forys was pushed all the
way by Shenendehowa, NY senior Steve Murdock, who ran 12:15.5, an astounding
performance in its own right and now Number Three on the all-time Van
Cortlandt charts.
To some, seeing Forys and
Gruenewald run in separate races was a downer, robbing them of a possible
chance to take the course mark under 12 flat in an all-out, mano-a-mano
duel. To others, though, it added to the beauty of the day and guaranteed
six more weeks of suspense leading up to the Nov. 25 duel (and most,
likely, an Act 3 at the Footlocker Nationals in San Diego.)
“If it (the course record) didn’t happen today, it would
only have provided more motivation for the future,” philosophized
Gruenewald. “My team has always run so hard here.” But notably:
Shenendehowa ran even harder, its 64:40 five-man total (12:56.6 average)
challenging Fayetteville-Manlius’s 2004 12:48.8 as one of the
best in Manhattan meet annals.
“l know I’lll
have to get better,” said Gruenewald (who also bested the Manhattan
meet record of 12:17.1 by Belmont, Mass’s Victor Gras in 2003.).
“Either way, it’s a win-win situation.”
From Forys’ vantage point, “I figured we were on pace (for
a record effort), because we (he and Murdock) were going real fast.
He came on real strong on the downhill (the stretch past the bridge
leading into the finish straight) and passed me. He opened a little
bit on me but I also knew it was a long straightaway and it would be
tough for him to keep that pace going. I just tried to hold together
and it worked out great.”
With 150 meters to go, Forys
unleashed his winning sprint. But once he had it won, he also eased
off a tad in the final strides, at a possible cost of a few tenths of
a second. “Coach (Jim Schlentz) told me at the beginning of the
straightaway that all I had to do was beat him (Murdock) and I’d
have the record,” said Forys. “That was all that was on
my mind. I finally felt good running here (after running a subpar race,
thanks to a mystery illness, at the 2005 Footlocker Northeast Regionals.)
Everybody here was running
tough. Conditions (coolish and fast) were perfect. “I just caught
the right day. I’ve just got to keep the distance up, keeping
work out strong and I think I can make it to the end (of the season)
pretty strong. Once I got here today and saw how good the conditions
were, I knew the record was a definite possibility. I knew if I wanted
it that bad I could get it.”
He gave Murdock full credit
for pushing him to the record: “There was no way I could have
done that by myself. Those guys were so strong. Everybody else is in
such great shape right now. I’m so happy for all those (other
guys) running quick, too. This was a great day for a lot of people.”
Once Forys had the record,
it was Grunewald’s turn to go after the brand-new mark. Coach
(Bill Aris of Fayetteville-Manlius) yelled at me (down the final straight)
and said Forys is at 12:10' I looked up at the clock and knew “wow,
this is going to be close,’ “ said Gruenewald.
“Coming in to the meet,
I had heard that Forys and maybe some others were going to try run 11:55,
or something like that.” Me, I was just trying to run as hard
as I could.
Actually, I was just trying
to think of it like it was a hard two-mile, and then just keep on going.
I was feeling it in the first mile, I was working so hard. My coach,
though, is always telling us we’re not going to fall apart, we’re
way too strong, and I had faith in that. I just kept holding on, and
even picking it up a little. It was just a great race to run because
I love this course. I like the way it’s set up. It’s very
symmetrical. You just go out hard in the beginning, you go up the hills
and we love hills. Then, you’re at the top and it’s halfway
and it’s almost like it’s over already because it’s
all downhill. You get to open up your legs and it’s like a recovery.
When I hit the (final) bridge, I still had all my resources, and that’s
where you can open up. I’m not sure what would have happened if
Craig and I were in the same race. I do think we would have motivated
each other to go even faster. Under 12? Sure, I think it’s definitely
possible.”
Then again, the new record
may endure for someone else to challenge in 2007 since - to repeat -
Nov. 25 Forys-Gruenewald race will be 5,000 meters (3.1 miles.)
