Introduction
Introducing… Andrew Scalese. Better known as just simply “Scalese,” Andrew is a graduating senior from the University of Maryland, studying Civil Engineering with a focus area in environmental and water resources. While an avid runner and member of club running, Scalese can also be seen as a member and the treasurer of a professional environmental science fraternity on campus, doing environmental science projects, hosting career nights, and even having fun at formals and tailgates. Scalese also regularly be seen saving lives as a lifeguard at the Eppley Recreation Center Pool. Scalese is also a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers which he said is “essentially a civil engineering club,” and noted that Civil Engineering had a fantastic lounge where he spends a lot of time. With all this involvement, Scalese did say that club running is his most important club.
Outside of campus, Scalese is a big outdoors guy. He enjoys hiking, kayaking, biking, and fishing. Most of his favorite spots are close to his home in Washington County, with those being Antietam Creek, Greenbrier State Park, Cunningham Falls State Park, Antietam Battlefield, and the C & O Canal. Of course, one of his favorite outdoor activities is also running. Since Scalese is unfortunately leaving us after graduating this week, let’s take a look at his running journey and how he got to where he is today.
Early Days of Running: High School
While further research and data collection could eventually prove otherwise in the future, as of now the first trace of Scalese’s running career goes back to his 8th grade soccer career, playing AYSO soccer, in Washington County Maryland. Scalese kept it real with himself and realized that he was absolute garbage at soccer. However, he did enjoy the running part of soccer. After running a 7:30 mile during an 8th grade gym class mile race, he decided running was for him, and when high school came, he decided to sign up for cross country.
Coming into Boonsboro High School, and becoming a Boonsboro Warrior, Scalese’s initial motivation for running was that he wanted to run track after watching his brother, the legendary Matt Scalese run track and do soccer in high school, but he wanted to run cross country too to prepare for track. Scalese started off his season by running his first ever 5k in a summer time trial, where it was extremely hot humid. Scalese finished off his time trial with a time of 30 minutes. He followed this with a dramatic improvement during his first meet of the season at Clear Spring, running an impressive 26 minute time.
Scalese wasn’t sure what his season pr ended up being freshman year of cross country, but he did reflect on his season, saying it was a lot of fun. He said it was tough to balance cross country, while also being a member of the marching band, but it was so worth it, especially being able to make a group of friends who all did both band and cross country. They named their friend group “Ohana,” and became super close (Ohana means family after all), being able to bond over showing up to band practice late all the time after cross country practice.
After cross country season, it was time for track… what Scalese had wanted to do most in the first place. Scalese reflected on both his indoor and outdoor season of his freshman year and said they were both largely uneventful, but both very fun. Scalese was running mostly longer distances at this point, running the mile and 800 in both seasons, with the occasional JV 4×400 meter relay in the outdoor season. He again wasn’t sure what times he ran during these seasons, but knew he hadn’t quite broken 6 minutes in the mile yet.
After freshman year came sophomore year, starting with cross country. This season is where Scalese said he “blossomed into the runner he is today.” Scalese dropped a bunch of time and broke 20 minutes in the 5k at a meet at South Hagerstown High School. Despite getting much faster, Scalese remained on the JV team, only being able to race one varsity race on the varsity B squad for a meet. Scalese also had lots of fun goofing off during this season, with the most notable moment of goof offery being inducted into a group of runners that built forts in the woods instead of running 25 minute shake out runs before meets. Scalese and friends also inherited a fort called Stalingrad 3 that has been passed down through generations of Boonsboro High School cross country runners.
After a fun and successful cross country season, track season came. While Scalese noted his outdoor season of sophomore year being again uneventful, his indoor season was jam packed with fun. This season, Scalese began transitioning from long distance running to mid distance running, running more and more 400s. Scalese stayed on JV during this season but had the opportunity to run a varsity 4×800 meter relay every once in a while. During his JV running career, Scalese ran the “JV Classic” for the first time in honor of Boonsboro High School Legend Jacob Zelinkski who invented it. Since JV meets allowed runners to hop into any races they wanted, Scalese decided to run a mile, 200, 800, and 400 all in one meet… The JV Classic! Notably during this season, Scalese also ran his first and only ever 2 mile race, with an impressive sub 12 minute time. With all this running though, one of Scalese’s favorite memories from this season is a sprinters vs distance snowball fight during practice.
Soon though, sophomore year ended and junior year began, which Scalese said is “arguably the best year in high school.” During cross country season, Scalese really started getting into the stride of running, improving again, breaking 19 for the first time in the 5k, and starting getting into the 18:30s. This season, Scalese became a regular varsity runner on his team, which was very impressive because his team was GOOD. Boonsboro won the county meet, and regional meet, sending Scalese to the state meet for the first ever time. While Scalese was an alternate for the race, he was luckily the most special alternate, being the 11th man on the roster. At Boonsboro High School, being the 11th runner meant you had the honor of continuing the tradition of jumping into the town bond the week before states. This must’ve given the team good luck, because Boonsboro came home Maryland 1A State Champions for both boys and girls, winning their school 2 Mickey Mouse Championships.
After a successful cross country season, indoor track came around. Scalese had become a full time mid distance runner at this point, running pretty much exclusively 800s, 500s, and 400s, with a couple miles here and there, getting a pr of 5:17. Scalese earned himself a spot on the varsity 4×800 meter relay team as the “third and best leg.” He ended up as the alternate for this relay in the state meet so he didn’t get to run, but his team came home with another state championship, this time for indoor track. Scalese also had some more snow related fun this season, creating a HUGE snowball with his teammates instead of running one day when a blizzard struck Boonsboro.
Scalese continued running mid distance into his outdoor season, but also ended up answering one of his coaches that said “We need a 300 meter hurdler.” Yes, that’s right. Scalese became a hurdler this season. He began his journey doing a 300 hurdles workout without any prior training, doing broken 300s. 200 meters with hurdles, followed by 100 meters without hurdles. Somehow he got over the hurdles, and ended up running the 300 meter hurdles all season, and even finished 7th in Washington County in the event. Scalese finished his season the same way he finished his last season, as an alternate for the 4×800 meter relay at the state meet, but this time his team did not come home with a state championship.
After junior of course came senior year, a year where he would start having some struggles related to running. After too many years of Boonsboro dominance, the league got tired of it, and decided to bump Boonsboro up to 2A, specifically 2A West, a very competitive region. This just so happened to happen after Boonsboro lost a lot of their very fast senior runners. This ended up meaning that Boonsboro did not qualify for the state meet for the first time in a while, which was very sad for the team. For Scalese personally, he continued to be a varsity runner this season, but plateaued a little bit. He did manage to set a lifetime best time in the 5k of 18:30 at the Frank Kaiser Invitational, a home meet hosted by Boonsboro, but didn’t improve nearly as much as he did in previous seasons. Being a senior also meant that Scalese was a team leader which was a bit of a struggle since a lot of the underclassmen on his team weren’t taking things very seriously. It also became a bit of a struggle to continue balancing running and band with his new leadership responsibility in cross country, and because he became a section leader and had a solo that year in band.
Senior year indoor track Scalese said was the “start of the downward spiral of the Boonsboro track program.” He said the team wasn’t much of a team anymore, and there was a far too much goofing off. Scalese continued running though, doing mostly 500s, 400s, 800s, 4x800s, and 4x400s as usual, and was even able to come away with an 800m PR of 2:20, a pr to this day. Also notably during thai time period, Scalese went on his longest run ever, running 7 miles round trip to his girlfriend at the time’s house and back, running an entire town over from Boonsboro to see her on New Years Eve.
After the Winter came Spring, which meant it was time for outdoor track. This season started off amazing for Scalese as he ran a personal best 59 seconds in a 400 meter time trial to start the season, his only ever time breaking 60 in the 400. However, this wouldn’t last wrong. Soon came March 13, 2020 where it was announced that Scalese would be out of school for 2 weeks for COVID. On that day, his coach canceled an 800m time trial that was supposed to occur, and it never got rescheduled, as Scalese would not return back to high school in person.
The Intermission: COVID
During the height of COVID in 2020, Scalese began his sadness running period, where he would wake up and be so bored that he would end up running twice in a day, once in the morning, and once in the night. Scalese, like the entire world, had nothing going on during this time. He tried to hang out with friends safely when possible, but of course couldn’t do that much. Luckily, he was able to have an outdoor high school graduation so he was able to walk across the stage.
College: The Introduction to Club Running
Scalese came to college at UMD in Fall 2020, and was luckily able to be on campus, despite COVID restrictions. He was first introduced to UMD Club Running his fall semester of freshman year when he was doing homework with former apparel coordinator Eamon Plante who encouraged him to come out to club running. During this time, club running only met once a week, and runner had to run with masks on, but Scalese still decided to come out. He had a great time, meeting legendary club runners, such as the many Matts, Gabe, and Adam Gradess. While it was fun, Scalese realized that he was not in very good shape anymore, as he rarely ran more than 3-4 miles when he ran on his own. Running was a major destresser for Scalese freshman year, with cherry chill being one of his favorite destress routes.
Sophomore year of college for Scalese started off well. He started going to practice fall semester and began meeting more people as club running was meeting every day once again. However, in October of his sophomore year came the incident. Scalese unfortunately injured his rib cage, and couldn’t come to club running the rest of the semester. However, spring semester, Scalese was back and better than ever. This semester he met his good friend Andrew Cullen for the first time at club, as well as other club running legends, such as Sam Guzzone, Lillian Hsu, Adam Cullen, and Sohan Ganatra.
This semester, Scalese began racing again for the first time since high school, with his first club meet being Happy Valley Invitational, where he ran the 4×400 meter relay. He also ran the 400, 800, and 1500 at nationals in Olivet Michigan. Despite Scalese not being adequately prepared for the extremely cold of this meet, and not running very fast times, Scalese had a great time with an extremely lit hotel room consisting of him, Andrew Cullen, Sam Fields, and Tim Chu. Importantly, Scalese also realized how cool the club running sprinters were on the bus ride back from Olivet. This happened to coincide with Scalese being tired of running long runs, so he decided to transition from club running distance to club running sprints. Scalese also ran the Terrapin Invitational this year, running the 200, 400, 400 hurdles, 4×400, mixed 4×400, and the “all Andrews” 4×100 meter relay where Andrew Cullen notably dropped the baton during his leg of the race. Scalese also learned to use blocks this semester and was on the sprinter team for the first annual sprinters vs distance ultimate frisbee game, certifying himself as a true sprinter. (The sprinters lost that game).
After this, junior year of college came where Scalese continued to be a regular sprinter, but still dabbled in distance a little. Scalese raced his first club cross country race, running the open 6k at nationals in Richmond, where he had a lot of fun. This fall semester also had notable moments as the club running coed 7v7 IM soccer team won a championship, and as Scalese won a paper plate award at club running formal for graduating from distance to sprints on the club. Overall this was a very fun semester for Scalese.
Spring semester junior year, Scalese continued to race track, running the 400 at pretty much every meet, and also running quite a lot of 200s as well. This season, Scalese raced at Happy Valley, Nationals, JMU, and Shippensburg. Unfortunately, Scalese was unable to break 60 seconds in the 400 this season and it was really starting to get to him. He really started to get burnt out of 400s, and realized he just wasn’t having much fun racing the event anymore due to some race anxiety he felt with the 400.
Some of his favorite moments of the semester include his legendary experience racing (and beating) a 70 year old “Olympian” in a meet, running a pr of 26 seconds in the 200 meters to outkick the old geezer. A 70 year old who happened to have run a 50 second 400 when he was 50 years old. Olympian is in quotations because it’s not confirmed he’s an Olympian but Scalese noted he was wearing a Team USA singlet, and also he was fast as hell so surely he’s an Olympian. Scalese also had a great time at Nationals this season, stating it was one of his favorite meets ever.
After this came Scalese’s senior year of running, and his last year of college at UMD. This year Scalese vowed to have as much fun as possible with the sport since it was his last year. He continued to do mostly sprints this year, but did a little distance. In the fall, Scalese made his 8k cross country debut at JMU where he told club runner Frankie Andrews he was planning on running a 40 minute time before the race, and proceeded to run a 35:30. Scalese also joined some members of the club running team for a camping trip before the meet, where he had lots of fun, even as it poured rain when the crew packed up to leave for the cross country meet in the morning. This semester also marked the start of the sprinters doing long runs with the distance crew, where Scalese became the leader and route picker as the most experienced distance runner.
The fall came and went, and it was suddenly the Spring 2024 semester… Scalese’s final semester of college. Scalese was very happy to have a senior outdoor track season, as his high school senior season was canceled due to COVID. Scalese remembered his racing anxiety that came with the 400, and decided to retire from the open 400 this season and replace it with 800s. Scalese started his season running at Happy Valley, running the 4×200 meter relay, and his all time favorite event, the indoor 800. He continued his season, running at UVA, with another 800 (his first outdoor 800 since high school) and also an open 200. He said this meet was very small and had a few weird vibes, but was still very fun. At this point, he realized he was enjoying track meets a lot more now that he wasn’t running the 400 anymore. At the NIRCA Nationals meet at VCU, Scalese ran another 800 and 200, and also ran a 4×400 meter relay (he just didn’t like the open 400, the 4×400 was fine. He had a great split of 60 in the 4×400, but not a great 800 race. He knew he needed to train the next two weeks specifically for the 800 to get revenge at the upcoming Terrapin Invitational. Once the Terrapin Invitational came around, Scalese started his day with a Swedish Sprint Medley Relay, running the 300 leg and having a lot of fun. Later that day he was asked by club running President Zach Kiedrowski to go into the commentator booth to take over commentating and the aux while the race walk was happening which he agreed to. After playing some FIFA bangers, he queued up Kingdom by Downstrait (legendary WWE walkout song) because he wanted this song to play during his 800 race. By some miracle, as soon as Scalese got to the line for his 800, the song started playing. He had timed it perfectly. Running with his song playing, Scalese had a great 800 race, running a 2:27, smashing his goal of running a sub 2:30. After this he finished the meet, and his track career (he threw javelin at a meet after this, but that’s not really the same to him) with a 4×400 meter relay… the event he had been running for all 8 years of his running career. An emotional event to end, Scalese shed some tears. After the race, Scalese reflected upon his last 8 years of running, feeling sad to see his track career come to an end, but happy to be able to have one last home meet.
While done with track, Scalese had one more run to worry about before ending his collegiate running career. After over a year of being begged by Andrew Cullen to run the Frederick Half Marathon (Freddy Half), Scalese decided that for his senior year, he would actually run it. The night before the race, Scalese was so excited he could barely sleep. The morning of, he woke up at 4am, and got picked up by Andrew Cullen on the way to SPH. Soon enough 7am came, and the race in Freddy began as it poured down rain. Going into this race, Scalese had run a maximum of 10 miles a week over the course of the semester, with his longest run of the school year being 6 miles, and his longest run of the semester being 5 miles. It was now time for him to run 13.1 miles. Knowing his lack of distance training, Scalese made his goal for the race to break 2 hours. As the race went off, Scalese felt good for a few miles, running at a pace of approximately 7:30 per mile. At mile 3, Scalese decided to start playing some music as it was getting close to a distance that he was no longer used to running. At mile 4, he lost feeling in his feet. However, Scalese maintained a solid 7:30 pace despite this, eventually running into Lillian Hsu at mile 9, where he ran with her for a little bit, but soon ended up dropping her. At mile 10.5, he regained feeling in his feet, but at mile 11.5 he lost feeling in his legs, barely able to move them at this point. A true hero, he powered through the pain and kicked hard to the finish to barely break 1:40 with a finishing time of 1:39, smashing his goal of sub 2 hours by over 20 minutes. Even though this race left Scalese immobile for the 2 days following, it didn’t matter. Scalese deemed this his greatest athletic performance of all time. He had just run 13.1 miles at a pace of 7:30 per mile… 9 years after he began his running career in 8th grade, where at a 1 mile race during gym class he could only run a single mile at this pace. What a journey.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Scalese is very glad that he decided to make the jump from soccer to track. Running was some of his favorite memories in both high school and college, and he was able to meet some amazing people through running. Running has helped him through some difficult times in his life, and he’s glad he’s had running as the one constant in his life where he can show up to the track and know he has fun awaiting him in his running community.
