Joey Payeur
The layout seemed more appropriate for training Green Berets than being used as a racing venue.
But the Muskie cross-country running team proved itself to be army tough as all five black-and-gold competitors made it through the mud and mire that made up much of the OFSAA course at Duntroon on Saturday.
That was more than several other schools at the meet could say.
“Out of 309 runners, [31] didn’t make it to the end,” noted Muskie coach John Dutton in recounting the Herculean effort of his senior girls’ crew, which made history by being the first Fort High team to qualify for the all-Ontarios in the sport.
“It was mountainous and the mud was more than ankle deep, but the girls toughed it out,” he remarked.
“This was like nothing they had seen this year . . . I don’t know what else I could have done in just two months to prepare them for this,” Dutton added.
“Walking the course the day before, it was treacherous enough,” he said.
“The downhills were so steep, you couldn’t walk down them but it was like running through a minefield.”
As a team, the Muskies finished 38th out of 39 schools in the senior girls’ division with 937 points (the combined total of the team’s top four placings).
The Glebe Gryphons (Ottawa) led the field with 77 points and a total time of 1:21:07.
Fort High actually had the slowest total time over the 4.955-km course at 1:45:04, but edged past the Timmins Blues (999 points) in the standings.
That’s because the Blues (1:44:43) had no one finish higher than 225th individually while Muskie team captain Jenny Hammond led her squad by coming in 137th with a time of 23:20.
Madeleine Ghazarian of the Preston Panthers (Cambridge) captured first place (18:25).
“I think I ran to the best of my ability and did a good job, and so did everyone else,” Hammond said about her cross-country swan song after returning to Fort High for her “victory lap” year.
“At the beginning, because there were so many girls at the start, I hung back a bit as a lot of them up front were getting trampled,” she recalled.
“Then the first huge hill slowed me down some.
“But once I got up it, I got to my pace that I held throughout the race,” Hammond noted.
Muskie teammate Erin Tomalty, who placed 270th (27:29), agreed with Hammond’s assessment of the course.
“We trained for hills but I don’t think we could have trained for that kind of stuff,” said the Grade 12 runner and lone rookie on the team, who wasn’t jumping for joy when she woke up on race morning to find it had rained all night.
“It was already muddy to begin with, but at least there were a few dry spots along the side of the trail when we walked it the day before,” she noted.
“That was not an option on race day,” Tomalty added. “You just had to hope your shoes didn’t get stuck in the mud.
“And that first hill was like three hills in one. It was evil.”
Another factor that worked against all the senior girls’ racers was the fact they were one of the last groups to compete.
“By the time they got to it [the course], well over 1,000 runners had ran it before them, which made it even worse,” said Dutton.
Tomalty finished one second ahead of teammate Gabi Peters, who came 271st (27:31), and laughingly denied there was an intentional partnership during the race.
“Mr. Dutton told us before the race he didn’t want us running together, and that this was not a buddy race and that there would be no chatting,” Tomalty chuckled.
“I was kind of bummed out about that because the whole course, either Gabi was ahead of me or the other way around, but we were always within a couple of feet of each other.”
Muskie Sydney Radigan wound up in 263rd place (26:44) while Tory Beaudry was 275th (27:44), with her mark not included in the team’s combined time.
Kennedi Handberg, who served as the alternate for Fort High, did not race.
“The girls weren’t discouraged about how they run, just about their (placing),” noted Dutton.
“But I told them to put it in perspective,” he said.
“They were part of a group of 309 starters in the race who made it here out of 10,000 or 12,000 runners across the province.
“The southern Ontario schools had pre-races for OFSAA, which have even twice as many racers as in this event, so a lot of the girls they ran against had seen the course already,” Dutton added.
Hammond wasn’t hanging her head when all was said and done—and was adamant neither should anyone else on the Muskies.
“I told the rest of the team they made it to the point where they could compete against the best girls in the province,” said Hammond, one of two members of the team with previous OFSAA experience in other sports (track and field).
Tomalty in curling was the other.
“It was a great year,” she added. “It’s such a positive environment and I’m going to really miss it a lot.”
Tomalty, meanwhile, lauded Dutton for helping the team reach its potential.
“Mr. Dutton said he was really proud of us, and that we ran a great race and that we finished it strong, which is what he wanted,” she noted.
“He’s a really good coach and I’m glad we had him because he’s been really good to us.”
For Dutton’s part, he professed his good fortune for having the team around him that he did.
“The whole ride home I was thinking about the fact that every day of the season, I found myself wishing that I could ‘run like a girl,’” he smiled.
“I’d take the same group of girls again because they were so encouraging of one another,” Dutton added.
“I couldn’t be happier with the season we had.”
