Running is Family

NORTHBRIDGE – The humid air on the Lasell Athletic Field during the first official week of varsity cross-country practice felt like a sticky bowl of soup. It was 88-degrees at 8:30 in the morning and head coach Steph Reilly’s small team of five boys and three girls just finished a series of warmup drills. As they rested and rehydrated, the former 2012 Irish national Olympian focused her attention on her two male middle schoolers.

Seventh-grader Ronin Colvin and eighth grader Seth Geary drank their water as they stood along the edge of the track near an unattended soccer goal. They waited patiently for their instructions from Reilly.

“Ronin and Seth, our goal today is,” Reilly said, but she paused. She then smiled and asked the boys, “You’ve done the middle school mile before, right?” The mile run they were about to do “is similar to that,” she said.

One of the boys quickly responded, “yes, but it took a while, though.” Reilly laughed and echoed the boy’s reply with the hint of her Irish accent. “It took a while, huh!” She then joked with them and said, “you guys probably stopped and walked and were messing with your friends, right?”

The boys smiled and said, “yes!” This was only their third official practice. They never participated in any organized team sports up to this point in their lives. Reilly then gave her young runners advice to get through the mile run, which is four laps around the track in oppressive heat. “So, today I want you to refocus on one lap at a time.” The boys asked if they could take water breaks. She said, “if you want. Even if you did two laps, chug a bit of water and then do the other two, I’m good with that … whatever we do today, we’re going to come back in a few weeks when it’s cooler and see if you do better the next time.”

She then instructed the entire team to make sure their water was along the side of the track so they had easy access to it during the run before giving more coaching encouragement.

“We’re only doing one mile and then you’re done,” she said. “It’s the only hard part about today and then we’ll do a little stretching of your core, alright?”

The small group of five boys and three girls headed toward the starting line. Joining Geary and Colvin were junior Nathan Williams, sophomores Marcus Reilly and Matthew Waterson, and freshman Dylan Reilly. All the boys are new to the Northbridge program, but Marcus and Dylan Reilly, siblings and the sons of the coach, have extensive experience running. Marcus is an elite runner, ranked number one in the country as the top high school sophomore and rated in the top 20 overall. Dylan has experience running in the junior Olympics. The girls’ roster is composed of three returning runners from last year. They are juniors Sarah Cowen and Madelyn Andresen, and senior Celia Walker.

“That’s the tricky part, trying to navigate such a broad range of abilities, but the beauty about running is that you kind of zone in on where you’re currently at and build fitness from there,” said Reilly, who knows what she’s talking about. This may be Coach Reilly’s first year teaching at the high school level, but she has more than 15 years of college coaching experience at Bryant University (2007-2015) and Providence College (2015-2021).

She also brings a wealth of elite competitive experience to the Rams program. Reilly competed for her home country of Ireland in the 2012 Olympic Games that were held in London. She ran in the 3,000-meter Steeplechase, finishing ninth in the second heat with a time of 9:44.77. In her lead up to the Olympic Games, she competed at the European Track and Field championships in Helsinki, Finland.

However, building elite runners is not her main priority in Northbridge. Reilly hopes her small team can become the foundation for a new running culture in the town. “I think the biggest part is just keeping them engaged,” she said. “Keeping them focused and keeping them confident that they can do this. If they do stick with it, they will improve.

“The three girls have run before,” she said. “They ran last year. They know what they’re doing. We have two middle school boys who are brand new to running. So, they never participated in any kind of formal running or anything. They didn’t do other sports, so this is really new for them. We have Matthew, a sophomore who can run and Nathan is a junior, who is new to it, but he runs well.”

Initially, Reilly’s goal is to get her team to run a mile without stopping. From there, they will progress to two miles without stopping and then three miles without stopping. Three miles is the basic length of high school cross country races. Dual meets are usually between 2.5 and 3.1 miles or a 5K. “Right now, all our athletes on the team are very new and/or are very young. My goal will be to get them into a consistent routine of training and running over the next couple of years where they can see improvement, and hopefully make jumps in their running.”

Despite their team size, the runners are excited about the upcoming season and the prospect of building a strong team bond.

Andresen joined cross-country in eighth grade to follow in her parent’s footsteps, so-to-speak. However, she quickly discovered the joy of being part of the team. “I thought it was amazing because I met some of the most supportive, amazing people,” she said. Her goal for the season is to get under a seven-minute mile. She is close to her current best of 7:06. “I cheer people on and try to be supportive to everyone and tell them, ‘you’re gonna do great!’ That gives you the motivation to want to push hard … It really feels good when you meet your best goal and we do it together as a team.”

Walker, a senior who started running in eighth grade as well, thinks there is a benefit to being a small team. “We’ve always had such a small team and I think that makes building relationships and building a community within the team really important because if you have ten people and you all know each other really well and you’re really close and supportive, it’s just going to be a much better environment and everybody’s going to improve much more … Especially with a small team, it feels more like a family.”

Williams, who had no interest in sports prior to watching the recent summer Olympics, decided to hop on the treadmill for the first time. “For a while, I resented sports and I just didn’t get them or choose to watch them, but the Olympics started and because of the quarantine boring everyone, I just decided to watch it. And I decided to watch more sports regularly and I decided that track and cross country would be the best to get into.”

Williams does not regret his decision to join the team, but he only wishes he joined sooner. “It’s great,” he said enthusiastically. “All the people are really nice and supportive, especially being able to go to school with the same people and being able to communicate and just relate to them. It definitely has brought the team together. If I’m walking down the hallway and I see someone from the team, I just can wave to them and it’s not awkward like it would be if you wave to someone you haven’t met before … I know it’s going to be harder but I know with practice and effort, I will be able to do as well as my teammates in no time.”

This is also Waterson’s first experience with being part of a running team. “I was expecting it to be a little more awkward at the beginning of the year but it’s definitely better than what I thought it was,” said Waterson, who has been on mountain cycling teams. “Everyone is coming from the same school. I have skewed expectations because on the bike team, everyone is coming from different schools and so we all have our different bike groups. This team is different. This is pretty tight knit from my experience. Everyone is willing to help. We all relate to one another with everything.

“Today, I surprised myself,” he said. “I ran a 7:22 mile. My goal is to break seven and maybe get closer to a six-and-a-half-minute mile towards the end of the season or maybe towards the end of the year.”

For some of the returning runners, they are looking forward to starting a season not hindered by COVID restrictions. “Last year was my first time running cross country,” said Cowen, who hopes to take a big leap forward in her mile. She ended last year around the nine-minute mark, but thinks she has a chance to get her time around seven minutes this season. “It was definitely tough. COVID kind of messed everything up. It just made getting together a challenge. Practices were kind of messy and the meets were jumbled together.”

She has high hopes for the current squad and enjoys helping her teammates. “I try to help people as much as I can. Running isn’t always easy so whether it’s stretching, or being a running partner with someone, because it’s definitely helpful to be running with someone, we help each other and it helps me to be a better runner by helping others.”

Walker described the COVID season as “really, really weird.” She said they were limited to dual meets, when in the past there would be between three to five teams at meets. “At some of the divisional meets it’s like 20 teams,” she said. “And there was one meet last year and it was our final meet of the season. We were running against Hopedale and two people on their girls’ team had tested positive, so the whole team couldn’t go. So, our last meet of the season, our five or six Northbridge girls, we were just running against ourselves. That was kind of a bummer way to end the season. I’m hoping for no more of that this year. I’m really happy to have this back.

Both Dylan and Marcus Reilly, the two most experienced runners on the team, want to encourage more people to give the sport a try. They said it’s not too late to be part of their close-knit team.

“Running is hard and it’s a challenge to recruit people, but I’ll just say it will keep you fit,” said Dylan, who is using the season to keep fit and to improve on his personal best 4:51 mile time. “It will keep you healthy and you’ll enjoy it when you’re done with it.” He called running on the grass and sometimes muddy cross country paths during competitions “pretty fun. It’s kind of like an adventure when you’re running. That’s why it’s fun.”

As an elite runner, beyond his goal of becoming the best runner in the state, Marcus hopes to be an ambassador for the sport in town. This includes helping to build a strong running culture in a predominantly football town.

“Certainly, this town is mostly a football town,” he said. “Nobody really pays attention to cross country so I certainly hope to inspire people to try running with us. It would be great if we add more people. If you look at the biggest programs in the country, they have tons of kids. They have the same as the football team, so certainly for us to work up to that is going to be tough, but there’s plenty of kids in this town that don’t do any sports. If we can get them to join it would be great. At least for the health aspect, maybe we can inspire them to get out of the house a little bit and go for a run with us.”

The team will run in the South Worcester County Division-A this season against Auburn, Grafton, and Tantasqua Regional. Their first meet will be against Division-B opponent, Southbridge High School and Division-C opponent Oxford High School on Wed., Sept. 8 at the Northbridge High School cross-country course (at the top of the hill) at 3:30 p.m.

To follow the team throughout the season, their social media handles are Twitter@NorthbridgeMAXC and Instagram@northbridgecrosscountry.

Northbridge Cross Country

At a Glance

Nickname: Rams

Affiliation: South Worcester County A

Colors: Maroon and White

Home Field: Northbridge High School XC Course

Coach: Steph Reilly (1st year)

Assistants: None

Captains: None chosen yet

Schedule

Sept. 8 – Oxford at Northbridge High School XC Course – 3:30 pm