By Dan Plouffe, published Oct. 25 in EMC/Kanata Kourier-Standard
A double-double is usually reserved for coffee drinkers or basketball players, but Kanata’s Day family achieved their own unique cross-country running double-double at the high school city championships on Wednesday, Oct. 17 at Terry Fox Athletic Facility.
Grade 9 Holy Trinity Catholic High School athlete Owen Day kicked off the day with a commanding victory by over a minute in the midget boys’ race, and older brother Mickey closed it with a solid senior boys’ triumph several hours later.
It was the second time Mickey was part of a double Day dominance – he won the midget boys’ crown back in Grade 9 when his older brother, Kieran, took the senior prize.
“We completed what we wanted to do,” smiles Mickey, who was proud to celebrate the fulfillment of what’s become a family tradition of excellence. “It was a good moment.”
Earlier, he’d greeted Owen with a hug after his younger sibling made his high school debut in splashing fashion by opening up an early lead and continuing to add to it, crossing the finish line of the five-kilometre event in 17 minutes, 39 seconds.
“With all my friends and my family, it was just a great feeling to come down and see everyone there waiting for me,” Owen recalls. “My brothers and my dad have all done it, so I really wanted to do it. It’s very exciting.”
The four Day males sometimes run together in the woods near their house, although Mickey and Kieran are the more frequent running pair since their gap in age isn’t as significant to ability level.
“We probably should start bringing (Owen) along now,” says Mickey, who won his 7 km race in 21:41. “He trains a lot harder than my older brother or I had at that age. I’m expecting good things from him this year.
“He’s got two older brothers, so he’s got to try to go after us with everything he’s got.”
Mickey ran alongside A.Y. Jackson Secondary School athletes Brendon Howard and Alec Jarvis for most of the race until making his break after a hill and cruising in for a 57-second victory. He missed having last year’s national capital silver medalist Alex Berhe to push him in the race, however. The pair are always side-by-side in races, but Berhe wasn’t able to compete since his Woodroffe school did not enter a team due to the teachers’ labour dispute with the province.
“He’s really fast, and a great guy. He’s very fun to run with,” Mickey highlights. “Him and his coach came to visit and watch the race, so that was nice.”
Howard and Jarvis were also affected by the labour conflict. They’d moved into training programs for cross-country skiing and triathlon respectively for a two-week period before their fall season was resurrected when parents stepped up to coach the team.
“A big thanks to our parents,” emphasizes Jarvis. “They were really great for helping us out.”
Around a dozen Ottawa-Carleton District School Board teams were missing from this year’s event, including one of the usual powerhouses, Colonel By Secondary School.
Regardless of who lined up, the Glebe Collegiate Institute junior girls’ team of Katherine Marshall, Alexa Livingstone, Claire Smith, Zoe Pritchard and Emma Barrett were prepared to take anyone on.
They earned a remarkable four of the first five positions, and five of the top seven, en route to a near-perfect team score of 11 placement points.
As midgets last year, the Glebe girls earned antique-bronze for fourth place at the OFSAA provincial championships, and are poised to make a run for the top spot on the podium this year. The team is boosted by newcomers Marshall – a midget-aged athlete who was the surprise winner of the junior race – and Pritchard, an Iowa native whose parents are living in Ottawa for just one semester.
“I can’t remember the last time a team from Ottawa has won OFSAA,” salivates Glebe coach Kirk Dillabaugh, whose group will try to unseat the two-time defending OFSAA champions from Hamilton’s Westdale Secondary School. “I know we’ve had a couple silver medals in the past 10 years, but to win it, that’d be fun.”