This Saturday while many will be recovering from indigestion after Thursday night’s Thanksgiving feast, freshman Philip Macquitty will be running 3.1 miles in the State Finals cross-country meet at Woodward Park, Fresno.
"He’ll be running in a race that will contain all the best freshmen [runners] in the western region of our country," Coach Jeff Billing said. "It will be a good test to see how he stacks up against national-level competition."
MacQuitty is the only boy representing Paly at the State Finals. Paly seniors Renata Cummins and Alicia Ivanhoe will represent the girls.
Throughout the season MacQuitty has excelled. Among his accomplishments this season are winning the frosh/soph race at the highly competitive Clovis Invitational meeet, finishing fourth in the SCVAL league championships, finishing third in CCS and setting a freshman course record by 11 seconds at Toro Park, Fresno.
"These performances are incredible and most likely mean that he is one of the top 25 freshman [runners] in the country," Billing said.
However, one would not conjecture from his training that Macquitty is a nationally ranked freshman runner. Billings says that compared to other runners at Macquitty’s level, his training has been minimal.
Macquitty ran cross-country at Jordan Middle School, and as an eighth grader ran an under five minute mile. Senior co-captain Zev Karlin-Newman said that the team expected the incoming Macquitty to be really good. "But personally I didn’t expect him to do as well as he did. He suprised us all by how well he ran at Clovis, Crystal [Springs] and Toro."
Macquity is familiar with the state course, having ran it once before this season at the Clovis Invitational. But this time Macquity will be combating jet lag and a cold. Macquitty is flying home from Thanksgiving in New York the day before the race.
"[These are] not the best circumstances for the biggest race of the season," Billing said.
Nevertheless, Billing has high hopes for Macquitty.
"I think he has a good chance of being one of the top 20 finishers in Division 2, and one of the top 100 runners in the entire state of California," Billing said. Billing added that California is the most competitive state in the US in cross-country.
While Billing looks forward to this Saturday’s race, he can not help being excited for the future. "If he can stay healthy and consistently, but gradually, ramp us his training then he should be a scary competitor by the time he’s a senior," Billing said.
"Saturday should be fun, but the next three years will be the real party."