USATF Club Nationals Cross Country
Just got back from Cincinnati where I ran in the USATF National Club Cross Country Championships. My club, Team Good River, ran great with outstanding performances in all four races: Men and Women's Open and Men and Women's Masters. Over 50 of us from TGR braved snowy and muddy conditions and gutted out great races and had a lot of fun afterwards! There were over 1000 participants in the four races from all over the country. Really proud to be part of such a great team. Thanks so much to the team's organizer and great runner in his own right, Tim Budic, for making it all happen. I was really happy with the way I ran in the Masters race. I was the top scorer for the TGR "B" team with a 39:40 over the unbelievably muddy course. For what it's worth, the course was actually long and more like 6.5 miles -- not that it matters since XC is all about place. This was a really good end to my season and quite an improvement over my XC race in San Francisco last year as I placed much higher in the overall and Age Group standings. Also, I was about 1:30 closer to the winner than I was last year, which is probably the best way to gauge XC success. The whole weekend was a lot of fun. A bunch of us met up for dinner the night before. I caught up with my friends Stephen and Jennifer from Ann Arbor on race day and even had a post-race beer on the course thanks to Stephen's ever present Dogfish Head cooler! Later in the evening I enjoyed quite a few post-race beers with the TGR crew. A great end to my 2007 season where I set masters PRs in 5K, 5 miles and 10K. Looking forward to crushing them all next season!
Calm before the storm!
An endless line of the country's best Masters runners get ready to rumble!
Braveheart!!!!!!!!!
Early on and already getting caked in mud!
