On Sept. 24, at the Jackson Invitational, juniors Vishvaa Ravishankar and Louis D’Souza ran times that got them on the Troy High top ten 5k leaderboard. Ravishankar ran a 15:47, making him the third best 5k runner at Troy High. D’Souza ran the 10th best 5k with a time of 16:03, edging out the 10th place record from 1985. These two runners have accomplished the extraordinary achievement of getting on the highly competitive Cross Country Top Ten Leaderboard. No other runner has gotten on the top ten leaderboard since 2019.
Preparing for this accomplishment took a lot. According to D’Souza, “I’ve spent a good few years practicing.” All this practice included many other races, throughout the years.
Going into the meet, Ravishankar felt ready, saying, “for this my confidence was at an all time high.” Being mentally prepared for a race is just as important as being physically prepared for one.
However, D’Souza felt differently going into what would be his best race ever. Before his extraordinary race, he felt a unique type of pressure, saying, “I definitely felt pressure before the race but not that was put on by anyone else, it’s just personal pressure.”
Even with feelings of pressure D’Souza says,“I definitely laid it all out there for that meet.” It seems that different runners thrive under different circumstances.
For the 10th place runner, D’Souza was widely supported on his running journey, stating, “I felt a lot of support from my teammates and coaches and parents and other people’s parents. It really helped me drive through to run better.”
One may wonder, how did D’Souza and Ravishankar feel when they crossed the finish line and knew they had done the extraordinary? D’Souza said, “When I got on the leaderboard and broke the top ten, I was like very excited and surprised. I didn’t expect going into that meet to be able to get up on the leaderboard. But when I crossed the line I knew I made it and it was just very exciting.”
After his record breaking run, Ravishankar said, “It felt nice that [the work he put in] finally paid off. Overall it just felt really good.”
The record breaking runners have some advice for success. Ravishankar’s biggest piece of advice is to, “Just trust the process of training and all that. If you’re not seeing progress early on, don’t be disappointed or anything, but just know that eventually it will come and you need to be patient and just wait.”
D’Souza’s lesson for runners is, “in my opinion, I think running is more mental and once you can get past the mental block, getting past the physical is much easier.”
D’Souza and Ravishankar’s records are an astounding accomplishment. The hard work and dedication has truly paid off for these two young men. They both have done and learned a lot from running into records.