USATF Cross Championships Weekend

Well I am sitting in the San Diego Airport waiting to head back to Terre Haute. Of course today is the nicest day that I have been out here and I have to leave. It is about 75 degrees today out here and 50 in Terre Haute with high winds that have apparently damaged my apartment and I may have to stay in a hotel tonight. Anyway this weekend has been a great experience for me. I got out here Thursday night and Friday Morning I ran over the course with Ben Rosario and Brian Lyons. Friday the course was a little wet from the rain the previous day. We hung out that night and had a good dinner. I happen to see Steve Scott that night at an Asics conference which I did not stay for. Ryan Hall seemed to be the high profile athlete of the weekend. It seemed everywhere he went people where stopping him to stay hi or shake his hand and wish him good luck. We stayed at the host hotel which was flooded with most of the athletes in the race. The time change took a huge affect on everything that we did. It was a three hour difference which made me tired at 8:00 p.m. and made me want to get up at 5:00 a.m. I never did seem to adjust to that, but it was alright.

Race Day I got a great night of sleep because I was so exhausted from the flying and the whole airport thing. We got Breakfast at Denny’s and I ran a little shakeout for about 15 minutes. We headed to the course to just catch the finish of the girl’s junior race. The boy’s junior race was very close race with a local Cali high school boy and Iona’s Ryan Sheridan who ended up second, but they both had very respectable times 24:12 and 24:teens. I warmed up during the women’s 8k which Shalane Flanagan dominated the field by over a minute. My fellow Big River Running Company Teammate Margaret Lyons finished the race in 45th place, she was very happy with her race. I talked to Tom Dever of Terre Haute about the course before my race to see what he thought of the course. (Tom ran the Masters race and was the National Champ for his age group 50-54) He said the course was not as fast as he thought it would be. He felt that the course did not have any spring because it was still a little damp. The course was a 2k loop that you run 6 times. The first K was rather flat a little damp in some spots. The 2k was rolling hills and some tight turns, but the hills were not that bad. The 2k is where most of the 5000 fans were congregated around which helped a lot.

Race- I started the race in a box with Nathan Wadsworth who runs for Kansas City SMOKE. The race went out very fast. I am not sure what my splits exactly were at certain locations but I did happen to catch a few of them. I was probably in about 60th place at 2k which I went through in 5:50. The course did seem to be running quite fast, but Tom was right that there was not much spring to the course. The grass was however cut like a golf course. The next two loops I stayed about in the same position making up a little ground on people who went out clearly way to hard. I went through the 5k in about 15:20 so I did slow down a little bit. The next 3k I just felt a little sluggish and was not very focused on moving up. I then realized that I went through the 8k at 25:12 and realized the Flanagan ran about 25:20 and thought to myself I should get my head out of my ass and start working on moving up. My last 4k felt absolutely great I don’t know if I picked my K’s much faster but people ahead of me started falling back and that really helped me knowing I was passing people late in the race. With 2k to go I was in about the 50’s and my time I believe was about 31:50 I felt like I ran my 11th K ok because the first K of each loop was rather flat but away from most of the fan’s. My last K I got into the fans and they were rather encouraging for everyone finishing. It was a really cool atmosphere. I ended up finishing in 44th place with a time of 38:12 averaging exactly 3:12 pace. Looking back on the race there where I few things I think I could have done differently during the race, but over all it was a good experience that I am happy with. I think there were only 4 people ahead of me that were the same age or younger than me which was really encouraging for the future. I went on a long cool down with Nathan Wadsworth. We talked about his experiences running in the MVC and I shared some stories with him. It was a great conversation and he gave some good advice about my future with post-colligate running. I really wish we could have run in the MVC at the same time. We could have had some really fun conference races together.

Anyway I am still sitting here at the airport wondering what my apartment looks likes. I might just stay here.