As I stood huddling in the athletes' tent at the USATF cross country nationals (held Feb. 18 and 19) I looked around and noticed I recognized a lot of faces. There were members of the Hansons-Brooks team, Nike runners and some recent Division 1 graduates that I've read about over the last year. I knew who they were, but I didn't know them.
This was only my second cross country race since graduating college almost four years ago and I suddenly really missed my old teammates. Myself and the other runners were waiting for the senior open races to begin as the junior women's 6K was being contested on Van Cortlandt Park's custom-made 2,000-meter cross country loop. The course had been set up just for the meet.
As the youngsters ran a snow storm sparked up, turning the air bitter and creating a very strong cross wind. Nicole Blood of New York was able to push through to win in 20:45 and earn the first ticket to next month's world cross country championship in Japan. The top six finishers in each of the junior and senior races were named to the U.S. team.
A few minutes before I was going to warm up for my own race a woman approached me looking like she needed a buddy as much as I did. Her name was Sharon and I would later find out that she was Sharon Lemberger from Connecticut and that she finished right behind me in the senior women's 8K (5 miles). We started chatting and soon we were out attempting to warm up in the near-blizzard-like wind. Sharon had just moved from Washington D.C. to Connecticut and was glad she hadn't brought her baby to the meet. As we finished our warm up we watched part of the senior men's 4K (Adam Goucher won in 10:50). The snow settled down right before the start of the men's race and by the time we were done warming up it was sunny and only mildly windy (although on a normal day it probably would've seemed way too windy to race).
Soon it was time to get a quick hug from my fiancé and my old college teammate (who ran the women's 4K the next day) and head out to the line. As I did some striders I realized I was right next to Colleen De Rueck, the two-time defending champion and a member of the 2004 Olympic marathon team. She disappeared to the middle of the line to await her introduction and I took my place over to the right side.
Unlike the normal course that's run at Van Cortlandt, the USATF race started parallel to the street (and the tortoise and hare statue) and ran straight across the field onto the cinder trail. It was a quick start, but I got out right away and found myself flirting with the top 40. I followed the pack up the only hill we would run on the course (however we ran it four times) and came up to the 1K mark where organizers had placed a clock. This was at the bridge that would normally lead runners onto the back part of the course but we kept going right down the hill to hit the long finishing straight before turning off to start the second lap. Just like in track a lap counter was set up at the end of the loop. This must have come in handy for the men's 12K that was contested on Sunday because those guys had to run six loops.
Three laps later I found myself closing in on Harvard's Lindsey Scherf, the junior record holder in the 10,000 meters. I knew Scherf was having a bad day, but I also knew it was time to pass her and doing so kept me right around my goal of finishing in the top 50. I was 52nd overall in the small but talented field of Olympians, national champions, professional and every day post collegiates. Blake Russell won the 5-mile race in 26:47.
To see the full results of the USATF cross country championships visit www.usatf.org.