Final Thoughts On Another Memorable Meet Of Champions

As we expected, it was another memorable day at Saturday’s Meet of Champions. Brookline and Lexington set themselves up nicely for Nike Cross Regionals – Northeast this weekend with a pair of impressive victories in the Division 1 races. Westford Academy’s Abby Hennessy — who will be at Franklin Park next Saturday for the Brooks Northeast Championships and looks destined for a trip to San Diego for the national meet — smashed the course record while capturing her first individual state X-C title with a dominating win in Div. 1.

There was also the Flagg sisters — Emily and Abby of Whitinsville Christian — going 1–2 in the Div. 2 race, a sweep of the Div. 2 team crowns by the Boston Public Schools Co-Op squads, and plenty, plenty more.

Here, we provide some final thoughts on the biggest meet of the season the Bay State.

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Can’t really explain why it happened so many times before, but it always seemed that whenever we put out our previews—especially for New Balance Nationals—Lexington got left out. It was never intentional, but trust us, the Minutemen’s supporters let us know. We’d get countless emails and Instagram messages asking, quite bluntly, What’s the deal?

And rightly so.

Pretty confident we’re not going to forget Lexington anymore. It’d be hard to. There’s no need for emails or DMs this time—just a set of eyes. The Minutemen put on an absolute show at the Meet of Champions. With plenty of pressure on them after scoring just 41 points a week earlier to win the Div. 1A title, Lexington left Willard Park with a 63–89 win over second-place Billerica. Just over a minute separated the Minutemen’s top five, who secured the program’s first team title in nine years.

Ask any coach of a championship team and they’ll tell you the same thing: It’s not me. It’s the team. And yes, a talented, hard-working group like Lexington absolutely wins championships. But you also have to give credit—more than they’ll ever take— to the fearless leader behind it all. Ask any athlete and they’ll tell you. That’s where they get their motivation. That’s the person who keeps them grounded. That’s the one that has them peaking at exactly the right time.

The mastermind behind this group is longtime coach Rebecca Trachsel. She was a standout runner at Greenwich High (CT) and competed at the Division I level at Colgate University. She’s an active masters long-distance runner as well, with a sub–three-hour performance at the Bay State Marathon back in 2018. She practices what she preaches. It’s clear she knows her stuff.

While we know Trachsel from covering the sport and interviewing her a few times—including this past week. We’ve also been told she’s one of those coaches who truly cares for her athletes and always puts them first. Take a look at the photo below. That’s Trachsel in the middle, acting as a human wall so her runners can rest their legs and start flushing out the pooled blood that’s built up after some intense racing. That says it all right there.

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Unless you’ve worn the shoes and participated in cross country — or any sport, for that matter — you can never truly understand how difficult it is to compete in a meet like the Meet of Champions. Especially when you’re at the elite level and everyone is expecting you to perform at your best.

For anyone to qualify for a championship meet like this past Saturday’s competition, it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication, and a lot of sacrifices. It’s not easy. Like previous competitions, there was the expected and the unexpected. Not everyone performed to the expectations they set for themselves, or that we had imagined. It happens — and it happened this past weekend.

For those athletes, there’s no need to hang your head low. There’s no reason to assume you failed in your attempt to achieve your best when you wanted it most. Yours truly has been around this sport long enough to know that some days, it just happens — some days, the stars simply don’t align.

Like any other sport, cross country has a way of making you feel on top of the world when personal records or top performances are achieved on the biggest stages. But it also has a way of humbling us, reminding us that perfection is elusive — and that effort, not outcome, is what truly defines a runner.

Congratulations to all the runners that competed at the Meet of Champions. Kudos to our team and individual champions. We’d also like to extend praise to everyone else that put it all out there at Willard Park. Your efforts deserve equal recognition as the teams and individuals that took home the hardware.

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By our count, between what we do on Bay State Running and Ocean State Running, we’ve gone to about 15 meets this season. Add the meets we cover during the indoor and outdoor track & field seasons, and the total comes to about 50 — sometimes a little more. That’s a lot. We’re certainly not complaining. We enjoy it. It’s our passion. It’s what we do

But even that total doesn’t come close to the number of meets Michael Mahon hits every year — and that’s just cross country.

This year, Mahon reports that he’s gone to a record 72 meets this season. Over a 41-year span, he told us the grand total is 2,207. We did the math — that’s about 51 meets per season, not per year! It goes without saying that there is no one more dedicated to this great sport than Mahon.

Here’s the beauty of it: each time we see him, nothing changes. He always brings that same high-charged passion to every meet. There is simply no one more excited about the success of our athletes and teams than Mahon. At this past weekend’s Meet of Champions, he was the official bearer of good news. He got the hard copy of the results from the timers, then delivered it to the winning teams in each division. To us, there was no one more fitting to hold that responsibility than Mr. Cross Country himself.

Quite simply, there’s no one better — and no one who embodies the heart of this sport more than Michael Mahon.