USA Cross Country Championships

Time: 80:00
Distance: 13 mi.



Well, given that I really didn't know what to expect, I am happy enough. The race itself was a good experience-the loops were definitely more fun than tedious. I wasn't as aggressive as I would've liked in the last 2 laps, but I was fighting off a side stich most of the race (I definitely wasn't hydrated enough). I don't know many of the splits, but I think we were through the first 2k under 6:10, which was about the pace that I thought I might be able to run... that was definitely aggressive, even though we were out the back. I tried to hang with Joe after that but had a hard time. I lost to a guy with grey hair in a Columbia jersey. My total time for 12k was 38:29, which breaks down to 3:12.5/k and 5:08/mi. For more, see full results at USATF.org.

I doubt Tarpy or Gaudette were particularly happy with their races. The Brown guys were up at Dartmouth. And the Texas guys have had a great weekend at the Tyson Invitational, with Jake and Kyle running 4:00, Jacob running 1:47 and the DMR breaking the NCAA (and world) record, running 9:25.

We got in an early shakeout in the morning, as well, down to the water in La Jolla where we got a peak at the seals.


The La Jolla seals

I'm taking a late flight through Las Vegas back to Austin to see Neely and Brian's friend John Welsh (and maybe Brian?) run the Austin Marathon.

Photo courtesy of Madeline

Terre Haute! Terre Haute!

Time: 70:00
Distance: 11 mi.

NCAA Div. I South Central Regional XC Championship

Target: make nationals, run smart.
Race: team 2nd; 14th in 30:18.

We accomplished our goal of qualifying for nationals with no trouble as we just had to beat Texas A&M who finished with nearly twice our score. Our team race wasn't quite as strong as I think we were hoping for though with Kyle and Jake a little bit back but Leo and Erik ran very well taking 3rd and 4th. Jake and I ran together through 3 miles, about when we caught Kyle, and I ran away from them a bit.

I ran the conservative race plan well, but the way the race shaped up, I was running nearly alone for the last 4 miles. There was a pretty strong front pack that Jake and I were off by the first mile and we were in no man's land trying to catch them. In the last 2 miles it really felt like I was almost running a tempo, with almost no one to run with and knowing that we had the nationals bid locked up. Definitely could've closed much harder, which I will have to get ready to do in 10 day--this wasn't even the effort of the Big 12s race for me. Went through the first mile in 4:50, second in 9:41, fourth in 19:32 (4:51ish pace), not sure about the rest but if it is a full 10k (there are questions about the distance) I would've averaged 4:53s (meaning that the last 2 miles were slow).

Bottom line: we're headed to Terre Haute, and I'm especially looking forward to giving both Arkansas and Oklahoma State another run.

With Jake near 2 miles...

and starting the second loop

1 Arkansas  37    5    6    7    9   10   27   41
Total Time:  2:28:59.10
Average:    29:47.82
2 Texas     52    3   4    12   16   17   19   44
Total Time:  2:31:00.60
Average:    30:12.12

1  Shadrack Songok        Tex. A&M-Corpus        29:16.3    1
2  Francis Kasagule       Lamar                  29:23.4    2
3  Leonel Manzano         Texas                  29:30.7    3
4  Erik Stanley           Texas                  29:35.2    4
5  Matt Munoz             Arkansas               29:36.7    5
6  Chris Barnicle         Arkansas               29:37.8    6
7  Scott MacPherson       Arkansas               29:39.3    7
8  Joseph Simichimba      Lsu                    29:52.1    8
9  Tyler Hill             Arkansas               29:55.8    9
10 Festus Kigen           Texas Christian        30:04.3
11 Steve Magness          Houston                30:04.3
12 Shawn Forrest          Arkansas               30:09.5   10
13 Nava Luis              Texas-Pan American     30:15.3   11
14 Owen Washburn          Texas                  30:18.1   12
15 Samuel Kosgei          Lamar                  30:21.5   13

18 Darren Brown           Texas                  30:44.4   16
19 Jake Morse             Texas                  30:52.2   17
22 Kyle Miller            Texas                  30:58.5   19
49 Jay Heller             Texas                  31:57.5   44 

More coverage: TexasSports recap, full results, other NCAA qualifiers.

Also, it looks like the Brown men capped off a frustrating year with a great race at the Northeast regional race (or is it now the New England region?) beating the rest of the Ivys there, which I was very happy to see... looked like great races by Ari and Graddy in particular.

Photos courtesy of two awesome but somewhat conflicted fans.

2007 Big 12 Cross Country Championship

Time: 70:00
Distance: 11 mi.

Goals: run for top-10 individually and for the win as a team; give 100% effort.
Race: 14th (25:10), fairly good effort/race; 3rd as a team behind Colorado and Oklahoma State, who both ran well.


Stan, Jake and Me

An okay day, but a little frustrating to be third. We were a little too aggressive early in going for the win as a team (we were leading at 3k and in second just past 6k), which probably kept us from getting second as we all faded a bit after 5k. Leo sacked up bigtime after falling a bit back in the middle, and Kyle and Stan were both solid. I would've really liked to be in the top ten, but felt flat over the last 3k. Overall, though, this still ranks as one of the best cross country races I've run and there is still a lot of room for improvement in our races in the next few weeks. Our team performance was almost undoubtedly better this year than last (despite getting 3rd), with 4 in the top 15 this year and just 1 in the top 15 last year.

The rumor is that the course was 160m long in the last mile, which seems to make sense from my splits: first two miles were about 4:45, hit 4 miles at under 19:40 (~5:00?) and finished the race in 25:10 (5:30 for 1600m, just about 5:00 for 1760m). The course was surprisingly difficult: all those little bumps added up to making it hard to get into a rhythm. Also, it was dry as hell... and the altitude shouldn't be totally ignored.

Place   Team            Score   1   2   3   4   5   6   7
=====   =============== =====   ==  ==  ==  ==  ==  ==  ==
1       Colorado        34      1   2   4   11  16  17  24
2       Oklahoma State  48      3   8   10  12  15  25  40
3       Texas           58      6   7   9   14  22  45  55

Place  Bib #  Name              Team            Time
====== ====== ================= =============== ========
1      52     Brent Vaughan     Colorado        24:22.30
2      45     Kenyon Neuman     Colorado        24:36.50
3      225    Ryan Vail         Oklahoma State  24:35.80
4      47     Stephen Pifer     Colorado        24:64.30
5      110    Colby Wissel      Kansas          24:51.05
6      243    Erik Stanley      Texas           24:53.05
7      241    Kyle Miller       Texas           24:55.20
8      217    David Chirchir    Oklahoma State  25:02.60
9      240    Leonel Manzano    Texas           25:04.00
10     220    Sean Fleming      Oklahoma State  25:04.10
11     43     Peter Janson      Colorado        25:04.30
12     222    David Jankowski   Oklahoma State  25:08.50
13     302    Edwin Sang        Texas Tech      25:09.60
14     244    Owen Washburn     Texas           25:10.05
15     215    Matt Barnes-Smith Oklahoma State  25:11.80

22     242    Jacob Morse       Texas           25:30.75
46     238    Jay Heller        Texas           26:19.40
57     237    Darren Brown      Texas           26:33.50
61     236    Habben Berhane    Texas           26:37.45
84     245    Robert Wetzel     Texas           27:24.80

Coverage: Flotrack Video | TexasSports

Lubbock is pretty out there, but now I can't say that I've never seen prairie dogs of cotton patches.

Blue Ridge Open

Time: 83:00
Distance: 13 mi.

Goals: don't be afraid to run hard and go to the well a little bit, be positive, run together
Race: 24:21 for 7th overall, 3rd on the team, team won handily; splits - 4:47, 9:32, ?, 19:32


The Zap Fitness guys led from the beginning and there were over 200 people in the race

Overall a good day for the team and me personally. Jake, Kyle and I ran together well through about 3.5 mi. I had a little bit of a hard time being aggressive and going for it at the end, probably a combination of some continued stomach trouble (suck it up) and not having raced in a while. That being said, I felt pretty good most of the way. Tried to go after Tamas Kovacs (?!) but had the feeling of... Wasn't dying but couldn't seem to turn it on and go faster.

Place  Name                 Year School Avg Mile Points
===========================================================
1  451 Warrenburg, Ryan        ZapFitness  4:50 23:59
2  327 Stanley, Erik        SR Texas       4:50 24:02 1
3  289 Kanyaruhuru, Daniel  SR Queen's     4:52 24:09 2
4  450 Pierce, Jon             ZapFitness  4:52 24:11
5  324 Miller, Kyle         JR Texas       4:53 24:15 3
6  150 Kovacs, Tamas        JR High Point  4:53 24:15 4
7  328 Washburn, Owen       SR Texas       4:54 24:21 5
8  325 Morse, Jake          SR Texas       4:55 24:27 6
9  66  Waggoner, Bo         FR Duke        4:59 24:45 7
10 320 Brown, Darren        SR Texas       5:00 24:49 8

17 319 Berhane, Habben      FR Texas       5:04 25:07 15
23 323 Manzano, Leo         JR Texas       5:06 25:18 20
45 329 Wetzel, Robert       FR Texas       5:12 25:49
46 321 Heller, Jay          FR Texas       5:13 25:53
49 330 Wilson, Ryan         SR Texas       5:14 25:56
61 322 Lowry, Bradley       FR Texas       5:17 26:13

Team Scores
===========================================================
1 Texas           23   1  3  5  6  8 15 20  
Total Time: 2:01:54.00 Average: 24:22.80
2 Duke            85   7 14 18 22 24 28 37
Total Time: 2:05:43.00 Average: 25:08.60
3 Appalachian     98  10 13 23 25 27 30 32
Total Time: 2:06:04.00 Average: 25:12.80
4 North Carolina  109 12 16 19 29 33 45 51
Total Time: 2:06:35.00 Average: 25:19.00

Recap at TexasSports, full results at GoASU, and more photos at Flotrack.

Baylor Twilight Invitational

Time: 55:00
Distance: 8.5 mi.

Target: "Don't hurt yourself."
Workout: 6k (3.73 mi.) in 19:00 (3:10 per 1k, 5:05 per mile)



Headed up to Baylor in the afternoon for the first "meet" of the season with a bunch of the guys who have already taken a season off. After a lightning delay we were finally able to start warming up at about 7:45 for what was now an 8:15ish race. The course was 2k loops on an intramural field, and by the time we were running they had to put the lights on, which was a little bit surreal. Felt okay running about tempo pace, but my stomach acted up a little bit (probably due to some food pre-run). Ran with Darren a good bit of the way (until he kicked), Jake and Kyle went after it a bit from the get-go and Wilson and Harkins were a bit back. Didn't get home until pretty late, and I was pretty beat.

TexasSports Recap | Results | Photos