Pre Nats

We competed in the White Race (2nd of two equally seeded races) at the Pre Nationals this morning in Terre Haute, IN (home of Indiana State).  This course will host the NCAA championships in November.   With 39 teams in our race we knew we had our hands full and had to get out and in position early.  It was a cool morning with the slightest breeze on a dry, rolling course--perfect for cross country.  

Our top two runners (Alyssa Abbott and Chelsea DiGrazia) got out well with the rest of our team in solid positions.  At the half way point (3k) I was very pleased with our positioning.  Alyssa and Chelsea were within the first 70 and the rest of our gals were in the top half of the field.  We knew several runners would go out too hard with the early pace.  We wanted to be in position to take advantage of that.  Overall, I thought we did that well.  We had a solid finish and ended up 26th in our field of 39 that included 11 ranked teams.  We were only 60 points from a top 20 finish.  So part of me also feels like we let one get away.  Like everyone we have had our share of illness and a few minor injuries.  Hopefully, we can keep fighting through that and run even better at the conference championships in two weeks.  We were third among our conference teams and sixth among our regional teams that competed.