First the CC - Noah and the Southwest boys and girls had the State Cross Country meet in Kearney on Friday afternoon. Jen, her dad and I made our way out there to watch this running spectacle on the Kearney country club golf course. All classes are represented and run their individual races and friends and family make for a huge event. 1000 spectators? Maybe...What I really love about going to meets is that it is a spectator sport...in other words I always get a good work out running around the course trying to get glimpses of the action as it unfolds out there during the girls 4k and the boys 5k events. Some courses lend themselves a little easier to this, others like at Pioneer park you have to really work to watch the attack Choo Choo hill @ 1K to go and still see the finish...
Another thing about CC I love is the psych out before the race where all the teams take their place on the line and then go through their warm up and accelerations...and school chant. Kind of reminds me of the parading the horses into the starting gate so the spectators can pick their favorite to win. Noah had a pretty good day as did the other Southwest boys and girls, but probably not their best racing. Such is life...so hard to be up all the time...the fine art of peaking at the right time, especially for a bunch of high school age kids is still a deep mystery that requires some thought processing that maturity just hasn't lent itself yet to for most of the kids. Still the Southwest teams look promising for next year, the Senior boys will be missed for sure and someone will need to step up next year to fill some big shoes.
The Southwest boys on the start line.
On the CX side of things...The Flatwater boys put on a steller event at the VanDorn Park Cyclocross venue yesterday with Big money on the line. This course has been getting dialed in this fall with weekly training races and is pretty much a rocket ship of a course. You can fly, although it's been so dry this fall it's a bit dusty and the corners are a little loose. I love fast courses like this...this is the way it should be so that it caters well to a cross bike. Sometimes promoters focus too much on trying to cram a lot of spaghetti in a bowl. IE lots of tight turns and switchbacks trying to make the course longer...it just makes it slow.
Because my daughter was running a CC race in Omaha in the afternoon yesterday, I lined up with the masters field in the morning. (Abbi has been running with the Lincoln Youth Track club Cross country program. I really like this program and can't figure out why more aspiring runners aren't doing it, other than maybe it's not advertised very well. There's still time if you have middle aged kids that like to run... ) Anyway the Masters race was a blast...Jim Winkelpleck did his normal flyer at the start and I had to bully my way through the crowd to bridge up. He pulled hard the first lap with McJoey chasing us. Eventually Jim gave way and I ended up soloing for the win the next 7 laps or so...that course is so fun! Don't get the win very often - I'm pretty stoked.
The Masters Podium with our Cow bell awards. Pretty cool.
In the afternoon Abbi had a great race at Walnut Grove Park in Millard on the same course the High school uses for meets too. She ran a 4K pr of 16:36...Jeralyn Poe her teammate took the win for the girls and and Abs ended up third girl. Again, a fun course to watch on because they go back and forth in this small park so often it's easy to watch the action.
It sounds like the rest of the races @ VanDorn park were good and would have liked to have been part of the action in the Open race.
Also it sounds like the home boys did well in Louisville at the USGP of Cross racing. So cool that these guys are traveling and racking up the points.
Have a great week.
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