Southern California XC Championships

Sat. Nov. 10, 2007

K. Hahn Park, West LA
8k Championships

The race for me today was at 9am and 11am for Libby, so I had an early morning by myself. I woke up at 5:15, had my 3 egg omelette with cheese, 2 pieces of our homemade bread with peanut butter, banana and honey....and a handful of granola. Afterwards I hit the bed again for one more go at a nap for 45 min. I left the house at about 7:15 to make sure I got there with enough time to get some spikes in my shoes. The course was an all grass course that we looped around 4 times, quick math makes that 2k loops. It was only Matt and I today in the morning, because Ozzie quit the team yesterday. It would have been cool if he finished the last meet with us.....or ran with us the past 7 weeks, but what can you do. We warmed up and did our drills, which was then followed by a nice sized dump to get me ready for action.

The race had some pretty good guys in the field, even though there were like 50 people. There were 4 guys who have gone under 14 minutes for 5k, a 2:17 marathon guy, a 29 min 10k guy and then myself and Matt, not to sell ourselves short. The course was a little sloppy in parts but overall a good day for racing, about 70 degrees, sunny and no wind.

So we started off pretty comfortably, not too fast and probably in a pack of like 10 for the first loop. After the first loop, I felt that it would be wise for me to back off a little bit to make sure I didn't kill myself too early. So for the rest of the race, I was mostly alone. Matt was a few spots ahead of me, not too far, but far enough where I couldn't get him. Long story short, I got 9th, holding off 2 guys right at the end, and Matt was 8th. I had a nice PR, 24:52.1, and I can't complain. I finally had a XC race where I felt confident and didn't quit. Matt was 10 seconds ahead of me.

Eric led his 4k race for the first 1000 meters or so, and then a guy hammered past him and pushed for the rest of the race. Eric ended up second in the race, but a strong performance, especially for his first XC race ever.

Went to work after, and then jogged for like 2 miles to loosen the legs.

12 miles today