Brown Invitational and Soccer

On October 16th, tobin raced in the Brown Invitationals.  It was a cold, windy, fall day.  Abram went to his game while I took Carmen and Rachel to their soccer games.

This is a picture from after the race, but these are some of the varsity runners for Shrewsbury.  From left to right: CJ Williams, John Murray, Dan Mortimer, Tobin and Curtis Beals.

Here John is looking towards the camera so you can see his face.

The night before this race I hosted a pasta party for the team.  We seated 24 people in the house at once.  I made 5lbs of meatballs, 5lbs of breaded chicken and 5lbs of pasta.  We had left over meatballs and pasta, but all the chicken went.  It is impressive how much teenage boys can eat!  After eating some of the guys gathered to create a flag.  Below you can see a portion of this flag.  While the each group was running the flag was paraded around.  At Brown there were races for Freshmen, JV and Varisty.

Varsity runners received new uniforms this season.  Tobin is wearing it for this race.  The guys did comment that the shorts were short. Tobin is fine with that, but some of the other guys find short running shorts risque.





















Tobin went on the bus at 7am for this race.  His race was not until 3:30!  He had a bit of waiting.  By the time Abram arrived Tobin was finally warming up.

The number of runners in the varsity race was close to 170.  Tobin said that 27 schools were running in the varsity race.  Each team is allowed to enter up to 7 runners in the varsity race.  All the runners line up in a huge open field, race to bottleneck together as the path narrows.

I love my 80mm lense.  Abram took a picture of the line of runners and I was able to crop it and get this great picture of Tobin at the start of the race!  Tobin's shoes are great for spotting him in the crowd.  I have photos of him from this race where we are unable to see his face, but can find his shoes!

Chris Favulli found this photo of Tobin on the web and sent it to Coach Smith. Chris is in college now, but ran with Tobin last year.  He keeps good contact with Tobin about running.

Tobin ran this race in 16:13!  He was 23rd over all.  Very impressive.  He was a bit disappointed that he didn't get top 20 since they receive a medal at this race.  Tobin made it in the Worcester Telegram with his place and time.  His team mate, John finished 2nd in the race.

It is always impressive how Tobin looks for runners after the race that he was closely competing against and congratulates them and discusses the race too. 

I am glad Abram went to this race.  He met his former Merrimack High School cross country coach there, Mr. Snell.  The Brown Invitational draws from all schools in the NE area.  Mr. Snell has been coaching for over 30 years.  Had I gone to the race I would not have know who he was since I didn't run in high school.

While Abram was in RI, I was in Douglas, MA watching Carmen's game.  Here is a beautiful view at the end of the soccer field.  Unfortunately, the 20 mile an hour winds off the river were freezing for the players.  It also drove the ball in one direction in the entire game. 

Carmen played forward this game.  Notice the girls hair blowing in the wind. 

The score was 0-0.  Carmen is driving the ball into the head wind.  She did a good job as forward.  The players were shivering at the end of the game because the wind was amazing.

I don't have any pictures from Rachel's game because I am the assistant coach.  Abram was not at the field to take pictures too.  Rachel did have a game that day and played well.  I can put her in any position and she will be strong there.  Isaac believes she has great game sense because she has seen both soccer and basketball since she was a baby.  Maybe he's right.