Let's start with maybe the most remarkable turn of events at the Section XI Suffolk County cross-country championships last Thursday at the legendary, and legendarily difficult, Sunken Meadow State Park course in Kings Park. That would be the seventh grader who's the new county Class D champ.
And that would be Evelyn Rizzo, all of 12 years old, poised and personable, slight of build to better fly across the grass and gravel, and attending Sag Harbor's Mrs. Russell Sage Middle-High School (for the colossus of local philanthropy), otherwise known as Pierson, where a strong running tradition continues apace.
In the latest example, joining her on a coach bus heading up into the wilds of Warren County for the state championships on Saturday will be three of her Whaler teammates — Sara O'Brien, a senior, Josie Mott, a sophomore, and Bennett Greene (yes, of those Greenes), a senior.
They lost the county Class D team title to their rival, nay, their nemesis, the Port Jefferson Royals, by a single, painful point.
Port Jeff: not quite Sag Harbor on steroids, maybe a creatine powder mix. The parallels: the deepwater ports, the hills there and the hillocks here, the whaling history here and the whaleboat building there, Captain's Row here and Prospect Street there, both with their share of Greek Revival beauties, the sightseers, the ferry boats there, the need for them here, to cut down on the endless traffic, the eternal parking problems. And so on.
But back to Sunken Meadow. Its natural charms (boardwalk on the Sound, marshes, bridges over Sunken Meadow Creek where the egrets play) mask what is one of the most arduous high school 5K courses in the country.
If you've ever run it, you know. Snake Hill, long and winding, then dropping precipitously in a manner that tends to induce wipeouts. Hernia Hill, longer still, its tedious straightaway leading into Cardiac Hill, which rises too steeply, then levels out so you think it's over, before it somehow continues on, potentially wringing the life from a runner. Then the descent to "the moat," the bridge crossing, the grassflat finish.
Breaking 20 minutes there is a milestone. Evelyn did it in 19:48. Which is why Pierson followers can be forgiven for eyeballing all-state honors for the kid, which in fact is something her teammate Josie accomplished, also as a seventh grader, precisely three years ago upstate.
The Class D girls run at 10 a.m. They'll be joined by one Pierson boy, Lincoln Fischer, a freshman. He runs at 12:30. This at the vast and forested facilities at Queensbury High School, just north of surprisingly cool Glens Falls, south of the Queen of American Lakes, as they call it, Lake George.
Cross-country, it's big in our fair state. Big enough for these championships to be "presented by Taco Bell."
I can almost taste the Beefy 5-Layer Burrito.