MoCoRunning






Coaches Launch New Meet of Champions
By: Kevin Milsted
Sunday, June 10, 2018
webmaster@mocorunning.com

The new DMV Meet of Champions was born out of the passion of two local distance coaches: Jesse Gaylord of the Field School and Tom Brumlik of the District Track Club. While the meet was focused on middle distance events for its first year, Gaylord and Brumlik want you to know that they are serious about expanding the meet while maintaining quality over quantity.

Said Brumlik, "When we first had the call back in August, we talked about having a full track meet, but the more we thought about it, the more we wanted to make sure we did a couple of events perfect."

It would be hard to argue that the outcome was anything less than perfect. The fields were stacked with appropriate representation from DC, Maryland and Virginia. Elite seed times materialized into some of the finest prep performances ever recorded on Montgomery County soil. On a warm and humid June evening at Walter Johnson High School, event winners recorded 4:08.69 and 4:56.81 in the boys and girls 1600m, respectively, and 1:52.33 and 2:11.56 in the boys and girls 800m, respectively. The evening was capped off with a 1:48.01 800m performance in the elite men's 800m.

"So you can see some fast times tonight," said Brumlik, "...other coaches will buy in, believe and know that we're not messing around when it comes to high performance events. [We will] kind of build from there. So we went quality over quantity. After this, we're hoping to build out more distance events and then eventually we'll go to the sprints, jumps."

Gaylord said that he worked out the logistics for the meet while Brumlik took on tasks related to outreach and recruiting. Brumlik had previous experience working for the Georgia Meet of Champions, while Gaylord has been a driving force in organizing league and championship meets for the PVAC.

Said Gaylord, "I think all these mile races that are popping up around the country are really cool and get to the grass roots of track and field, so I think combining the high school with the pro race is a really cool opportunity for our kids to see what the next level is like...not even the next level but the level after that."

Expect the elite pro and semi-pro fields to expand in the future along with the addition of more high school events.






NameComments

John W
Sunday, June 10, 2018
03:13:05 PM
My son is a rising 9th grader at Northwood. He enjoyed the meet, especially since these were “his” events. I liked it because it was short! Fourteen hour meets at PG, yuck!

Jesse Gaylord
Sunday, June 10, 2018
05:43:22 PM
Thanks John. Glad you guys had a good time!

Tad DiBiase
Monday, June 11, 2018
08:01:46 PM
I agree! Great idea, fun meet and enjoyed the high level of competition.

Arthur K.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
09:21:19 PM
Fantastic meet, and great job organizing this. I sure hope this continues and grows. I also noticed, for the first time, pacers in the 800 and 1600 They did a great job and deserve some press! Who were they and are they Local?


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