PA Cross Country Championships

My life hasn't been all marathon training.  On November 20th, I laced up my spikes for one of my favorite annual races - the PA Cross Country Championships.  The race - 3 times around a hilly 2 mile loop in SF's Golden Gate Park.  It's a nice challenging race to cap off the cross country season, and fun to get all the club teams together in the same race. 

With rain falling for much of the week leading up, I knew it would be muddy one!  Here's a quick recap.

I have to say in all my years of cross country, that this was probably the sloppiest course that I have ever run on!  It was muddy last year, but my footing was firm enough with spikes on. This year I was sliding all over the place even with my spikes on.  After watching the men's master's race, I noticed there was a tight lead pack of 5-6 runners but after that the field spread out quickly.  In past PA Champs I liked to go out pretty conservatively on the first loop, then work my way up, but this year I was thinking "track position" (to use a NASCAR term) seemed pretty important.  I had confidence from my increased mileage and the longer tempo work from marathon training that I could hold on after a quicker early pace.  It was a weird experience to be within 5 seconds of teammate Neville Davey (who has won several PA races recently) & others at the mile mark, but a quick internal systems check told me the pace was ok.  I gave up a few positions at the end of the first loop as I let myself regroup, then started moving forward again at the bottom of the hill on the second loop.  Close to halfway the race seemed to be going by fast.  3 miles in I felt confident I could keep pressing hard without blowing up, so I made an effort to surge by any runners who appeared to be falling back.  On the 3rd and final loop I was battling with a strawberry canyon runner.  He opened a 5 second gap on the flat section by the polo field.  Up the last hill and down into the meadow I was reeling him in, but just ran out of room near the finish as he crossed 1 second in front. While this wasn't my best time ever on the course (I ran about a minute faster under dry conditions), I feel pretty good that this was my best effort of the 5 PA champs I've run.  Final results - 32nd place in 33:34 (6.1 miles)


It's now the day before CIM.  We're about to load up the car for Sacramento.  I'll check back in after the race!