By Maddie Scullion and Olivia Byrnes
Assistant editors of promotion and production
On May 3, 2015, 2,109 people took part in the annual Mountain Goat race. This year, Jamesville-DeWitt High School had eight students and four staff members run. Of these students, senior Emilee Carpenter was one of the top 10 women’s finishers.
Carpenter, who finished 69th overall with a time of 1:11:12, said she wanted to run because she wasn’t doing track this year and wanted to get involved with something. First time runner senior Abby Shaw wanted to run it because she has been running for a while and wanted to accomplish something. Senior Anna Smith prepared for the race with Shaw, but was really motivated to run because English teacher Courtney Romeiser had talked about the race in class, saying that it was well put together race and worth running in. Another first time runner, senior Meghan Byrnes, wanted to run it because her dad had always run the race. “It’s the biggest race in Syracuse and I wanted to see if I could do it,” said Byrnes. Math teacher Charles Clinton ran his 12th consecutive Mountain Goat this year. “I knew the course, what to expect and the race is well organized and the community support is great,” he said about wanting to run it again. Senior Sammy Jaffe has run the Mountain Goat for the past two years and wanted to continue this tradition by running this year. Special education teacher Jenn James decided to run the Mountain Goat because she made a New Year’s resolution to run a race each month. In January she ran the Cazenovia Chilly Chili 5k, in March she ran the Syracuse Half Marathon the Tipperary Hill Shamrock Run, so she took off February to prepare for both of these races.
The students and staff of J-DHS had to prepare in order to be ready for this hilly, 10 mile race. “I went on longer runs and did hill workouts,” said Carpenter. Similarly, Shaw and Smith started preparing last month by going on long runs together and doing a lot of hill workouts. Mr. Clinton ran lots of hills in Jamesville but didn’t get to run as much mileage he would’ve liked because of his busy schedule. “Where my neighborhood is, it’s really hilly so I just started running a lot of hills. I also ran the Mountain Goat training runs,” said Mrs. James. The training runs are held before the race on Saturdays where the runners can run a part of the course to rain for the real race.
This year the runners had high spirits after finishing the race. “I was happy with my time. I felt good on the course. My goal has always been to finish under 80 minutes and my chip time was just under 80 minutes,” said Mr. Clinton. Shaw, Smith, and Byrnes said the race was harder than they expected because the amount and size of the hills surprised them. However, the hills weren’t as bad as Carpenter had expected and she felt good after finishing. “My goal time was an hour and 35 minutes and my dream time was an hour and 30 minutes and my time was an hour and 32 minutes, so I was really happy with my run,” said Mrs. James.
This year was the first year in awhile where the heat was an added factor. Mr. Clinton said he had to pace himself this year due to a bad experience he had a few years back when the weather was hot. “I ran all the way, but when I got to the finish, they had to carry me to a tent on a stretcher and give me IV fluids,” he said. Similarly, Byrnes wasn’t used to running in the hot weather; “it was hard to run in the heat, but it wasn’t unbearable,” she said. Jaffe said that it was really hot and the heat made the first mile hard.
Having finished the Mountain Goat, runners are already thinking about running again next year. Shaw, Smith, Jaffe, and Mr. Clinton agreed saying that they would definitely run it again. However, though Byrnes and Mrs. James think that they will run again, they haven’t thought that far into the future yet.