Susan Wong is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Phoenix Country Day School for AZPreps365.

Later sunrises equal later workout times and a couple more minutes of shut-eye. They still have to run the dreaded half-mile, but at least the weather is not in the triple digits. As Phoenix Country Day School’s squad begins to taper down for the upcoming Arizona cross country sectionals, things are starting to fall into place.

On Oct. 23, the Phoenix Country Day School’s cross country team competed at the 2nd annual Phoenix Classic Showdown at Sundown at Cross Roads Park in Gilbert.

Freshman Kimi Cahoon had an outstanding performance, finishing third in the Division III & IV varsity girls race with a time of 19:50.8, two minutes faster than her last race at Kiwanis Park back in September, when she ran a 21:59.0. Coach Camilo Tafur attributes part of her huge improvement to the fact that the course at Kiwanis Park is “notoriously difficult” and that every course is different, so it’s hard to compare times. The Phoenix Classic was only the team’s second meet of the season, and it came about a month after the first. 

“Although I really don't like doing [half-mile workouts], they’ve probably helped the most, so I can kick it in the last half mile as fast as possible,” said Cahoon, noting that the speed training has played a huge factor in her success. 

That was also the same week that the Eagles’ shifted to afternoon practices. Up until then, athletes were waking up before sunrise to get to school on time for 6 a.m. workouts.  Senior Ben Kreisberger still wakes up at 4:45 a.m. every morning but is used to it since he’s also on the swim team and they still have morning practices twice a week, so the shift hasn’t really affected his schedule. 

But for others, like Cahoon, they can now sleep an extra hour. 

The two main reasons for the shift to afternoon practices is the weather and because it’s still pretty dark at 6:30, according to Tafur. He also mentioned that many of the students at PCDS commute from all over the Phoenix metro area, and getting to school that early in the morning can be challenging, so they want to be accommodating to everyone. 

However, many of the athletes still prefer morning practices over after school practices, Kreisberger says it's a “great way to start the day,” and senior Claire Linos says “getting it done in the morning is so much more amazing” because she doesn’t have to think about it all day at school. Linos also said that practicing after school “takes a lot of time away from homework” because she’s getting home later. Instead of going home or to work right after school, she has to go to practice for an hour or two everyday, which also means she can’t work until the season’s over.

Even though the temperatures have cooled, and are no longer in the triple digits, “it’s still really hot sometimes,” Cahoon said. And, because the school is currently overseeding the field they use for practice, all their practices now have to take place along the Arizona Canal, which conveniently is right by the school, but unfortunately has no shade. 

Additionally, due to the pandemic shortening their season, Tafur says that they aren’t even able to take advantage of having more time after school to do longer practices because they’re starting to taper down for AIA Sectionals.

“Recovery times are getting bigger and volume is coming down a little bit,” Tafur said.

For 2020, the state qualifying standards from the sectional meets have been adjusted in order to limit the number of people at the state meet.

“Each sectional race will qualify the [top] one-third [or] 33% of full (5 or more runners) teams finishing as a scoring team at the sectional meet,” according to the AIA’s 2020 State Tournament Guide. They will also qualify the top seven individual finishers that aren’t from teams that qualified as one of the top one-third teams. And, if a section has an odd number of teams entered in the race, they will round up the number of qualifying teams. So, for example, if there are 11 teams entered, the top four teams will qualify for state.

As of Nov. 2, three PCDS girls were ranked in the top five of the Div IV Metro based on their season bests in the 5k. Cahoon is ranked first, Linos is third, and sophomore Ella Brenes is fifth. 

According to Athletic.net’s hypothetical meet, the girls are predicted to finish third out of nine teams, meaning that they would qualify for the state championship as a team. Tafur believes that even if they don’t finish in the top third as a team, Cahoon, Linos, and Brenes should still qualify for states as individuals, but he says “we’ll see what happens.”

This Thursday, PCDS will compete in the AIA Sectionals meet at Rose Mofford Park. The Div IV Metro boys race will begin at 1 p.m. and the girls race is slated for a 1:30 start time.