Notes
2016 NIRCA Great Plains Regional at Iowa State
Going into this race, we knew very little about the course having never raced on it. Heard it was pretty with lots of rolling hills, a "true cross country course" and had earned the title of Favorite Course Ever by Steve Krauklis, so had lot to look forward to.
The gun went off, and I got off the line well but very relaxed. Started with a big long straight away. Immediately, two distinct packs formed, the lead pack of ISU and Minnesota guys and then the rest. Found myself in between the groups, so made a conscious decision to stick on the tails of the leaders. As we went through the mile mark, the course curved back into a forested area with several large hills. No one was particularly hard, but they were pretty draining. The lead group was pushing a bit harder than I wanted to that early, so I settled in nicely. Weem and Auburn passed me, and I tried to stay on them, but was like 50m back. Josh and Choi came up on me as we left the trees and were back in the open plains at ~2 miles. Latched onto them and focused on staying relaxed. At this point we were in around 15th feeling good. The course looped back into the forest the reverse way, and Joshie made a pretty strong move at 4k. Just focused on covering that and working with them. We were approaching Weem and Auburn, but they then made a strong move and passed a large pack of the guys who had gone out with the leaders and were now paying for it. Just after the 5k, I passed Josh and was moving to catch an ISU dude a few places up, since I could tell the race with them was close. Got him going up a hill at the 7k and then was just running for dear life. Started to close on Weem a bit, but he was too far ahead to realistically catch him. Kicked pretty hard because the yelling on the straightaway was loud and I got scared. Ended up 7th overall, and third for the team.
Pretty happy with how the team did overall. We went 5, 6, 7, 8, 15, 16, 18 for our top 7 and had under 50 second spread off of 7. Unfortunately, ISU was just a bit better, beating us by 2 points. That was a tough pill to swallow, but I think that will help to keep us hungry going into Nationals. We want more, and we'll be ready. Had a very enjoyable car ride home with lots of sweets and good conversations.