(Photo by Kyle Brazeil)
Read more about Monsignor Farrell's blazing run at the Section I Coaches Invitational last weekend and a Health Professions girls' cross-country program that has blossomed amidst the concrete of New York City:
"Monsignor Farrell has run Bowdoin Park's grueling 5K loop, the site of the state Federation Cross-Country Championships in Wappinger's Falls, N.Y., many times. But no Farrell team has ever run it as quickly as this one did on Saturday at the Section I Coaches Invitational."
"When the High School for Health Professions and Human Services, a specialized school of 1,600 on the lower East Side, won the PSAL girls cross-country title in 2009, heads swiveled.
"People kept going up to our girls and asking them, 'Where do you train?'" said Joe Grammatico, a former math teacher at the school who started the program in 2006. "Their answer was: 'Anywhere we can.'"