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Masterman's Mancoridis twins are natural-born runners

Marina and Viki Mancoridis weren't thinking about winning the Public League cross-country title as they crested the hill above the Aegean Sea this summer.

Masterman students Marina, left, and Viki Mancoridis, right, freshman twins who finished first and third in the the Public League cross-country championships last week. They spent the summer running hills in Greece. They will be racing in the District 12 championships on Thursday. They practice along Kelly Drive in Philadelphia, PA on October 27, 2015.
Masterman students Marina, left, and Viki Mancoridis, right, freshman twins who finished first and third in the the Public League cross-country championships last week. They spent the summer running hills in Greece. They will be racing in the District 12 championships on Thursday. They practice along Kelly Drive in Philadelphia, PA on October 27, 2015.Read more( DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer )

Marina and Viki Mancoridis weren't thinking about winning the Public League cross-country title as they crested the hill above the Aegean Sea this summer.

Their coach wasn't, either. He was thinking about winning World War II.

When Masterman coach Luigi Borda found out the Mancoridis twins would spend part of their summer running in the Greek islands, he pictured one of his favorite books, Natural Born Heroes, by Christopher McDougall.

"It's about a runner who saved World War II in Greece," Borda said. "He took on Hitler by running through the mountains in Crete and capturing their general."

Did the daughters of Greek immigrants - who did end up leading Masterman to a Public League title a few months later - consider crushing fascism on those long runs through the hills?

"It was the first thing on our mind," Viki deadpanned.

Winning the whole Public League seemed just as crazy.

The former gym-class milers had been seriously running for only a few months. And they hadn't even started high school.

But last Thursday at Belmont Plateau, Marina outran every girl in the Public League as a freshman.

She finished the grueling 3.1-mile course in 21 minutes, 44.9 seconds. Viki followed in third at 21:51.3, a shoelace behind Franklin Towne Charter's Skyler Tomson (21:51.1).

Masterman girls dominated the team scoring, despite being a Class A team with a student population less than a quarter the size of second-place Central's. Borda said you don't need a large pool to find runners. It's wired into humanity's DNA.

"We were literally born to run," the Masterman social studies teacher said. "We ran for millions of years. We ran to get our food."

Evolution aside, Masterman owes much to Students Run Philly Style, which pairs city kids with mentors as they train together for the Broad Street Run and Philadelphia Marathon.

Five years ago, Masterman's entire middle-school contingent fit in Borda's Fiat. This spring, it featured more than 90 middle schoolers. The first group of Masterman middle schoolers entered high school three years ago. Tiny school-for-smart-kids Masterman just won its third straight league title.

The Mancoridis signed up this winter and finished Broad Street this spring. On Thursday, they'll return to Belmont Plateau to take on the Catholic League's best at the District 12 championship. They'll run the Philadelphia Half Marathon next month.

Borda studied the times and said he can beat the fastest 14-year-old girl in the city. If they keep pace with him, he guaranteed a twin would win their age group's first-place trophy at the half marathon.

Marina and Viki both established personal records at the Public League championship. Marina has done it in every race.

But if it wasn't records, trophies, or even Nazis, on their minds as they climbed that Grecian hill at sunset and witnessed the waves, the surfers, and the rest of their trail in front of them. It was one simple emotion.

"Pain," Viki said.

The view, Marina added, "was beautiful."

That's distance running. The twins say they want to run in college and eventually complete a marathon. Which, as their coach pointed out, might be the most Greek thing a runner can do.

"I don't think a lot of people running today are Greek," Marina said. "It's just something other people think. Everyone runs marathons now."

According to legend, the Greek soldier Pheidippides ran 25 miles to Athens to announce victory over the Persians at Marathon. Then he collapsed and died.

Marina Mancoridis crested Suicide Hill last week and sprinted out of the woods with the entire Public League chasing behind. When it was all over, she did not collapse or die.

She hugged her sister.

mmacyk@philly.com

@MarkMacyk