Officical results

Here are the race results- wow, I was 11th overall. Very happy!


http://www.goseattleu.com/pdf5/144898.pdf?ATCLID=1596613&SPID=10770&DB_OEM_ID=18200&SPSID=89885

Emerald City Classic

My second xc race of the season went much better. This was on a much tougher course than 2 weeks ago and I actually ran faster. Everyone was perplexed-- I guess I didn't run very well 2 weeks ago, plus I'm just getting a little stronger every week. This race was 8km and consisted of 4-2km loops. It had rained most of the last 24 hours but the course handled it quite well. I wore spikes just to be safe and think it helped on the sharp turns and down hills. This race was smaller and more low-key than Sundodger which was good and bad. It was good because I thought I might beat more people, but had a fear that I would be alone for a lot of the race as can happen in small races. Luckily, I had people to run with for most of the race. Early on, I spotted a friend from my running group, Mike Bailey, and tried to keep him in sight. He is always very consistent and runs with the fast guys in our workouts. I haven't raced him in a long time but he is definitely faster in recent workouts. I was actually nervous after the first lap that I was running near him thinking I may have gone out too fast. At 1/2 way though I felt him start to slow a bit and I pulled up next to him. I was nervous to pass as there was still a lot of racing to go and I didn't want to die. But I was feeling ok so I decided to go by and saw a teammate and another friend from the running group, Ben Haber, not too far ahead. I set my sights on him and tried to bridge the gap steadily so I wasn't stuck running alone. I still felt good when I caught him and then saw Bobby, who was in first place for our team, Seattle Running Club. I again tried to bridge the gap. This took a little while but finally made contact at about 5km, 1/2 way through lap 3. We ran together for a few minutes and then I saw another pack of 3 guys ahead that looked like they might be slowing just a bit. This gap was tougher to close. I was actually alone for the rest of lap 3 and the start of lap 4. But those guys were in sight which helped plus I knew Bobby, Ben, and Mike were all still close behind and fighting hard so I couldn't slow at all. I inched toward the next guy, and Eastside Running Club member, and finally caught him at 7km. We ran together and we both passed a guy who stopped on the side and looked like he was about to lose his breakfast. Around one of the sharp turns I had looked back and saw a new face making up ground and by the cheers from people on the sidelines I figured it was a runner from Seattle University. As I pulled away from the Eastside runner, this new Seattle Univ. runner caught me with about 500 m to go. He got ahead of me but I stuck right on his back to try to see how much he really had left. As we crested the last little hill and turned into the last 150 m I got on my toes and started to kick and pulled up next to him, he responded and we were both in a dead sprint for the finish line. I think it was a photo finish but I might have gotten him with a lean and the officials put me ahead of him in the finish shoot. Due to the mad sprint finish, I didn't stop my watch for several seconds so I'm not sure yet what my official time was. I was able to get each lap split and I was really happy with how even my splits were. And I managed to be the top guy for Seattle Running Club. I'm not sure how the qualifying for nationals works on our team, but hopefully that helps me make top 8 to represent our club in Spokane in December. We'll see, we had a lot of good runners not race today and Ben and Bobby were within 15-20 seconds of me so anything can happen. It was just fun to have a solid race and compete with people and actually out-kick a college kid. :-)
2km: 6:56
2nd 2km: 7:06
3rd 2km: 7:04
last 2km: 7:10?
Total: 28:17?
Next Saturday is a meet in Bellingham, WA, hosted by Western Washington University. We should have a bigger team there. And I think it is a 10k race which will be another challenge.