The boys cross country team began their season strong and finished it off with equal amounts of victory and potential.
Senior Jason Chan was not only proud of what the team accomplished, but also of “how far he [came]” compared to the commencement of his cross country career at Malden High School. Chan describes that one of his best meets of the season was the GBL, Greater Boston League, Closing meet. He says that he “felt so much joy crossing the finish line” and as a novice runner, he promised to challenge himself more in order to improve.
Chan met all of the goals he set for himself at the beginning of the cross country season. He describes that in the GBL Closing, he put all of his power into triumphing over the very runners who once defeated him thus he reached his main goals as a team member.
Although this was one of the major goals set for Chan, he had also established many more objectives for himself. One of them was to make the list of the team’s top three runners after facing defeat by three “very good” runners. He voiced that he “had a feeling” his goals would be reached if he employed the necessary hard work to his training and competitions. He expresses a sentiment told to him by cross country coach David Londino; “if [one] has the determination to do it, [they] can meet [their] goal”.
Overall, Chan expresses that he had “a pretty good season” compared to what his first meet in the GBL tournament, when he had no prior experience with long-distance running.
Junior team member Juan Buenrostro had similar additional thoughts regarding the conclusion of the boy’s cross country season. His personal record for this season was 5-1 for Malden. He placed first in five of the six races he ran in for the team. Although the sole meet he did not place first in was the GBL Opening, he did succeed in placing first in two out of three GBL races (against Somerville and Medford).
He describes that in a meet verse Everett he placed third. He had thought it “was supposed to be an easy win” so by the end, after falling behind, he had to “force it” in order to pass his fellow competitors. He gives credit to fellow team member, sophomore Ameen Anwar, for pushing him to place as high as he did during the meet.
Altogether, Buenrostro felt “not perfect or great, just good” about the season in its entirety. He says that given it was his first time running for the cross country team, he “ran his [hardest]…and tried really hard to make [his] coach happy”.
Contrarily Buenrostro admits that there are still areas as a team member that call for improvement. He says in one particular meet, Londino believed he could have ran the five miles in under seventeen minutes, despite the fact that it was his “first ever 5k race”. He ending up running the span in no less than eighteen minutes. He describes how this came as a disappointment considering his “perfect first mile”. He says Londino “didn’t deserve those results” especially after “all the training he gave [him] and the team”. Besides those few hitches, he says it “was a good season”.
In regards to personal goals, Buenrostro says he only had a couple for the season. He was proud that he was able to defeat a senior runner from Medford who previously outran him. He also says that as the season progressed, he was able to meet the remainder of his goals such as beating top runners from Somerville and “trying to stay with the best runner in the GBL in a race”.
Lastly, he talks about his favorite meet of the season, Malden verse Everett. He says that he “really made a difference in [this] race” and that this particular meet had very powerful impact on him. He describes how his Coach depended on him and his fellow teammates and top runners, Ameen Anwar, Kyle O’Brien, and Brian Tran Le to secure a win for Malden. He simply “was not going to let Everett win”. He says that the his favorite part of the race was “being the reason [they] won” as he placed third for Malden securing the team a hard-earned victory after an intense race.
