NCAA XC Nationals trip

When I was driving to MI couple weeks ago I wnet through Terra Haute and immediatelly thought "ït is not that far from me, I should come for XC nationals!" Then I have found out that thy had moved the nationals to Louisville and that's not too far from me either!

It was a good trip. Women's race was great! I saw them at two different points and they went to find a god spot at the final stretch and I am glad I did that because with 200m to go Hasay, Saina and D'Agostino were all together and it all came down to sprint finish. I really wish Hasay will finally win the race, I kind of think she deserves it because she is such a stud runner (I remember when she was still in high school in Cali and colleges all over the country were fighting to get her). At the end she was third, although she and D'Agostino cross the line at the same time. Grrr. But such a great race.
But that was not the end of the drama. Providence College was announced as the winning school and they were asked to come for interviews and photo shoots. Then 10min later announcer started apologizing to Ray Traecy because after Oregon's protest Oregon was in fact a winner. Wow! I can just imagine how Traecy and his girls were angry and disappointed. Imagine that. You are celebrating and all that and after 10min they tell you, sorry, we made a timing mistake and now you are second:(

Men's race had no drama at all. But it was a great race. Before the race everyone was talking about the match between Lalang and Kithuka and everyone wondering who is going to win since they have never raced each other before (I think) since Kithuka transfered to D1 school only this year. Turns out Lalang is no match for Kithuka. That guy was flying! Amazing. At the end Lalang finished third because his teammate (forgot his name, starts with an S, must google it...Sambu) came in second. It is quite funny because in every race they did, it was always Lalang 1st, Sambu 2nd and the rest of the field, now it got reversed.

Interestingly, top 5 or 6 men were all Africans and only then the non-Africans started to roll in (I think that the first non-African was Ahmed, who I think is Canadian, and only then the Americans came in)  whereas on a women side only Sainu is African and the rest were Americans. I wonder why not more African women compete here.

It was fun and I am glad I went. I also took one photo (men's start) as a proof that I was there but am too lazy to download it, so sorry, you will have to believe me that I was indeed there.

Once the race was over I did my own run. I ran on the championship course (2.5 loops) and I am always amazed how people can run so fast on xc courses because it always seems to me that I am going to break an ankle any moment. Although it might be that I do not wear glasses/contacts thus I do not see anything when I run which does not matter on track, but it kind of does matter on xc courses. I am blaming my poor sight for my poor xc perfomances.
So I did an easy 70min run and OMG my legs were sore afterwards. How sad is that?!? 70min run and my legs are done. They are not used to running long. (Geez, I cannot believe that I called a 70min run long...It is like I went 10 years back, because in HS 1h run was soooo long. Then in college anything shorter than 1h was not worth putting the sneakers on, and now I am back to 1h is looong. Well, I do 1h runs, all my intervals workouts take me ~1h but it is not continuous running). I know that I really need to start running higher mileage which an occasional longer run if I want to have a decent half-ironman next year. But I am being careful. Rather be undertrained than injured, right?
Btw, I was planning on running yesterday but I am glad I went for drinks with coworkers instead (place we went to had free refills on home-made lemonade so I decided to try every flavour that had.) because I feel that my ITB needed at least 48 hours to recover from Graston treatment.

And I also went for a walk through downtown Louisville. It is quite pretty.
Too bad it is not closer because NCAA Volleyball Champs are there in mid-December and I would love to see that as well.