Jeff Weiss, McGuffey, 6th
You set this as a season goal, congratulations on making it.
\"I had faith in my running. It\'s an honor to be here with the best in the Northeast. I\'m still in la-la land because it hasn\'t sunk in yet. I\'m really thrilled.\"
Did you discover anything important about the course on your Friday walkthrough, since it was the first time you had ever seen it?
\"The hills weren\'t as big as I though they were going to be. But other than that, it was what I expected. First mile flat. Second mile challenging. Third mile easy. People were saying the hills were big, but compared to western PA, they\'re just little hills. They\'re not that bad. I felt pretty strong the whole way going up the hills. But coming down the first big hill I stumbled a little bit. It was kind of a shock after being on the flat the whole time.\"
After running virtually alone in your races this year, what was it like to have a crowd with you?
\"Actually, I was looking forward to it because I knew the guys ahead of me would pull me to a better time. I was really looking forward to the competition, and I knew there would be some here.\"
Did you have to make any moves in the woods\"
Going into the woods, I was 10 or 12 and I had to pass three or four guys to get into the top eight. I picked off two guys in the woods, Craig (Miller) and the guy in the red (Martinez). It was a pretty drastic move between one-and-half and two miles on the way up the hill.\"
Miller was behind you coming onto the flat. Did you hear him coming?
\"He almost got me at the end, but I was able to hold him off.\"
How as the pace?
First mile was 4:54, second was at 10:20-something, and the last mile was pretty quick.\"
Craig Miller, Manheim Township, 8th
Describe your race.
\"We went out and in the woods, everyone started pulling away from me. I guess I was like 8th place the whole race. I could see the leaders almost the whole way. People were telling me how far behind me others were. I was pretty far ahead of the 9th guy, but then I realized he was still back there and could pass me at anytime.\"
DId racing the course on November 14th help you today?
\"I\'m sure it helped me a lot. To make sure not to kick too early because it\'s quite a long stretch to the finish. Just getting familiar with the course, knowing where the mile and two mile marks are.\"
Did those guys surprise you when they pulled away?
It was just little by little. I could still see 7, 6, 5 and 4 almost the whole race, so they were right there. I just knew that if I got 8th place, I\'d be happy. Hopefully I can improve a few places, but who knows, maybe they were just happy to get 4th place.\"
Does that finish your cross country goals for the season?
\"Yeah, coming into the season, I wanted to win leagues, districts, states, and I wanted to go to San Diego. And I thought I could probably do that if I kept training after states.\"
How difficult was that to keep training?
\"It was pretty difficult, because I was by myself. A lot of days my coach wasn\'t even there. I had to keep my eye on a goal and just make sure I didn\'t give up.\"
Then it\'s into the pool after San Diego?
\"Yeah, I\'m missing swimming practice right now. I\'ll probably miss two or three meets as well because they start next week.\"