Deer Isle-Stonington High School’s Henry Penfold competes in the freshmen race at the Festival of Champions in Belfast on September 29. Courtesy of Mary Penfold
Deer Isle—The cross-country team went to the Festival of Champions in Belfast on September 29, where over 1,750 runners from this country and Canada come to race. Under ideal weather conditions, all of our runners performed well, improving over their previous best times.
The biggest improvement has been Ariel Larrabee, who has lowered her per-mile time from around 10 minutes at the beginning of the season to just a little over 8 minutes. She placed 111th of 273 runners in the unseeded girls’ race with a time of 25:48.
Henry Penfold ran in the freshman race and placed 65th out of 226 with a time of 20:16, taking about 11 seconds a mile off his best time. Benjamin Penfold ran in one of the unseeded boys’ races, placing 69th out of 214 runners with a time of 22:25, about 30 seconds better than his previous best.
Coach Mary Penfold is very encouraged by the progress of all the runners, showing that they have been working hard this fall to constantly improve. This was the goal for the season and we have done well to achieve it.