Happy New Year!

Well here we are, just under 5 hours until the New Year. 2010 had its ups and downs as does every year. Some good training, some bad training, some good races, some not so good races. Unfortunately 2010 ends on a sad note. Yesterday was rough. It might have included me doing my final workout of 2010 and some tears were involved off and on mostly throughout the warm up. If I let my mind wander, I fall apart; however, I am better than I was yesterday. Thank goodness I took an extra day (today) off work. I needed it. 

So with 2010 ending, thank you to my family, friends and coach for sticking with me throughout the year. I am looking forward to 2011 which will involve achieving some new goals and reaching new heights. Only a couple of New Years Resolutions for this gal, but they will remain secret! Just some personal things that I feel I want/need to work on. 

The news I promised you is still coming. I was going to reveal it as the new year came in; however, with the events involving my Grandpa, I think I am going to wait until next week. Hang in there, I promise to blog about it after this weekend! Happy New Year Everyone! 

The Greatest Man I have Known

Christmas Day 2010!

It is with a heavy heart and many tears that I must say goodbye to my Grandpa. I just found out about an hour ago that he passed away peacefully in his sleep this morning at the local hospital. You see, we spent Christmas Day Evening up at his and my Grandma's place for Christmas dinner. He was full of life and his typical self. The following day, he fell while trying to navigate his double below the knee amputation around the kitchen while trying to get lunch. This fall resulted in a broken hip. He had surgery on Monday with minimal anesthetic and a spinal as he does not react well to being put under. He made it through the surgery well so we held hope, but unfortunately lost his battle this morning. He was 89 (90 in May). Christmas won't be the same without you Grandpa. =(

89th Birthday Celebration in May 2010

88th Birthday Celebration in May 2009

 

At my Mom and Don's wedding in August 2008. 

Christmas 2007

 

RIP GRANDPA!!! I love you always!

Wet Wet Pre-Christmas

The week before Christmas (especially the day before) was WET! I had an easy run to do on Christmas Eve and it poured the entire time. The part on the roads were wet, including running through flooding sidewalks. I then entered Hemer Park where I complete a lot of my runs. The entire trail into the park, which has to be at least 1-1.5km long was one HUGE consistent puddle. My feet were so wet by the time I even entered the park that there was no point in trying to avoid the puddles. I ran past some walkers who were each on one side of the flooded trail, their dog happily walking through the middle. I slowed slightly so I wouldn't splash them; however, I am sure they thought I was crazy. Splish Splash all the way along. Boy was the shower nice when I got home! Here is the aftermath, surprisingly not very muddy but definitely wet! 
 

These shoes were white about 4 days ago!

 

Back of the legs!

Fun in the mud! 

Merry Christmas!

I had planned to post yesterday about my very wet and soggy but fun run, but that never happened. I took pictures and all. I guess it will have to wait as they are still on my camera and I do not have time to take them off. In the meantime, just a quick post to say MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 1 Christmas celebration down, 2 to go!

Time for some Results!

Alright, I am a tiny bit more in the Christmas spirit, but only a tiny bit. I have now seen "Elf" on TV, so its more Christmas like now! 

Tomorrow I will go see a "new" physio. New to me at any rate. I am still having issues with my right hip/lower abdominal/groin/mid-lower back. The same issue that has been going on since last December is still going on! I hope to finally get it figured out. Seen 2 physios already, no results yet. Wish me luck for tomorrow!

After Party and then some

I have decided that the after party really wasn't all that spectacular to write a whole blog post about it. It was a fun night with a great group of people. I must say that it was an amusing night where I have never seen so many people get kicked out of a bar. 

Coach Matt, Myself, Natasha, Melissa and Catherine

The next day we were able to sleep in, have some breakfast and take our time getting ready as we were not leaving Guelph until late morning. Nice to have a 1pm flight (Victoria crew) or a 1:30pm flight (Vancouver crew). We were all surprised to get onto our bus from Guelph to the airport. That is right, Team BC rides in style with a party bus!

Everyone was taking their turns getting photos on the bus, so I thought why not!

 

Party bus!

Natasha, Catherine and I on the party bus!

We arrived at the airport well before our flights. They were very strict on their security in Toronto. I never had my stuff searched, but a few ladies from the master's team did. And when I say searched, they took out everything and looked in every container etc. Thank goodness I picked the faster line up as the other line took forever to get through. We all hung around and chatted until all of us Victoria bound people boarded our flight. 

The way home was a gong show. From Toronto to Winnipeg where we did not exit the plane. 

Flying into Winnipeg

So pretty above the clouds!

From Winnipeg it was onto Calgary, where we spent over 2 hours killing time in the airport! Hello Calgary Airport!

Finally from Calgary we were on our way home to Victoria. Snow in Toronto, snow in Winnipeg, snow in Calgary to GREEN in Victoria which wasn't the way we left it!

Most of the teams trip was done at this point; however, after arriving in Victoria just before 7:30, Jason picked me up and we were off on our drive home to Nanaimo. But it wasn't going to be THAT easy. On the Malahat just outside of Victoria we hit construction. We arrived there around 8:15.... construction started at 8pm. Erg. So a 15-20 minute delay and then we were on our way in the middle of backed up traffic. With a stop for food on the way home, I got home at around 10pm. Long day, with about 12 hours total of travel time! But definitely worth it!

So since Nationals, I took an easy week as a break and then am working my way back into training. So far it is going well. I was graced with a lovely sight on a run this week. Just regular run on a route I use quite frequently in Cedar and 2 animals (unsure if they were sheep, rams or goats as I didn't really get a good look) standing on a little mound of dirt decided to give everyone a show. There was one standing behind the other.... yep you guessed it, decided to have his way with the other. I believe I said "Are you kidding" and laughed while continuing on my way. Didn't last long before he jumped back down, who knows if the show continued. 

Yesterday I was given a nice snow/rain shower during my long run. At one point it came down quite hard, dusting parts of the trail with light snow/slush. It was a fun run though and I thank Phil for keeping me company on the last half. 

Now Christmas is less than a week away. Hard to believe. I am still also not in the Christmas spirit. A few gifts left to pick up and all the wrapping to be completed. I have 3 Christmas dinners to attend this weekend, so it will be a busy one. 

Stay tuned, an important update to come at some point as well! 

 

Roberts Roost

A quick detour from Nationals. 

 I survived a run with ROC (Runner's of Compassion) on Saturday. You see, I first ran with ROC a few years ago. 2008 or 2007 maybe? They took me on some trails behind Westwood Lake where I had never been. Most of ROC are pretty hard core trail runners, unlike little miss road runner here. I am a bit of a disaster on trails so I found out the first time I ran with them. 

To make a long story short, my first run with them, I was struggling to keep up with the crew on the technical downhills. I came across a big tree across the trail. I stepped up, pushed off and my foot slipped. As my foot slipped, the way I pushed off spun me in the air and I landed parallel to the tree. During this spin, I couldn't get my hand down in time and proceeded to introduce my nose to the dirt trail. I ended up with pine needles and dirt up my nose, but was lucky to have minimal blood. I said some choice words and the guy in front of me stopped and came back after he heard a loud "thud." I walked it off and finished the run. I ended up with a very slight new curve in my nose and a lovely black eye (I can't find the photos at the moment, so I can't post them). 

This past Saturday I decided to meet up with Westwood Running Club for my run. When I got there, I found ROC there too, so in the end we joined up and all ran together. We headed up to Roberts Roost. Let's just say part of this run was a hike as it had some steep inclines that included a rope climb at one point. It was definitely a good run and I ran well on the way up. The way down? That was a different story. I am way too cautious on downhills; however, I have good reason to be. Plus I don't want to wreck my upcoming season by trying to be a daredevil to keep up with the pack. 
 
I was definitely happy to finish the run without any incidents! I stole a couple of photos from sites online to show the view from the top of our run. It was beautiful as it looked over Nanaimo.

No idea who that guy is!

 

This one shows the Westwood Ridges, which means Westwood Lake is behind them. Robert's Roost goes higher than the ridges. 

 

This one shows Mt Benson summit on the left and Roberts Roost on the right.

Oh did I mention that on the way down, we entered the Department of National Defense? Yeah, generally you aren't supposed to go through that area and of course was we got there, we found a few members out there. A quick apology and quicker footsteps and we went off on our way!

Nevertheless, it was a good run with a great group of people. =) 

2010 AGSI Canadian National Cross Country Championships- Race Report

The night before the race I had a crappy sleep. I woke up sweating the last 2 nights, but the night before the race was the worst, plus I was up twice to hit the washroom and once when Mel got up. I felt very tired when I woke up but wasn't too bad after dragging myself up out of bed. We looked out the window to see snow falling. As we went to breakfast, the snow started falling harder. Turns out, there were 41km/h winds, with blinding snow squalls. 

 

The snow eventually stopped, though our Masters got stuck racing in it. We killed some time around the hotel room before finally heading over to the course at about 12:30pm. 

 

While we would have loved to watch the other races, due to the freezing cold, we opted to go only an hour before. The junior girls had just finished when we arrived and the junior boys just beginning. We went on our warm up around the course, did some drills etc and then were heading to the line. 

Did I mention the difference in the course?

 

It was cold, have I mentioned that? A few strides and we were on the line ready to go....."on your marks" he announces and then we heard "click" "click" "click" the puzzled starter looks at the gun and then says "3 more minutes" as he has to reload the gun. I threw a jacket over my shoulders, but it was useless. By the time we lined up to start again, I was literally shaking. My warm up was totally useless and gone. I was starting frozen. 

Senior Women Start

 

 

The race started and it went off fast. It was a shock to my body due to being so cold. I think I hit the first corner about 3/4 of the way to the back of the group but then slowly worked my way back up a bit. I really do not remember much of the race. We came around the first loop and I was still feeling okay, but man that hill was hard. Still not as bad as Aldergrove's course for BC's though. I picked off people on each lap, slowly but surely. No one passed me (that I remember). 

We ran two 2.5km loops and then a 2km loop to finish. After the 2nd lap, I felt light headed. Not really light headed, but I had this weird feeling in my body where I thought to myself "I hope I don't pass out." But then I started to concentrate on the breathing of the girl beside me. She was breathing harder than I was, why was I not gasping like that. I must not be working hard enough. I passed her on the downhill and never saw her again. 


I was glad to see the turn off for the 2km loop as it seemed like a short cut after the two 2.5km loops. I knew the finish wasn't far off. I kept working and hit the final uphill right behind 2 girls. I told myself that I was going to take them down. I heard someone yell from the sidelines something about me going to pass them and finish ahead (can't remember the exact words). I got to the top of the hill just steps behind the girls, but as it flattened out, I threw in a pick up and passed them both.

Finishing

 

I had no idea where I had finished. I found my team mates in the finish area and heard Craig tell Melissa she was 15th. I figured there was about 10 people including Jess between her and me, so I guessed 25th. Turns out I was 27th overall (26th Canadian) and RIGHT on the bubble for the top half as there were 53 finishers. You know what? I was more happy with 25th than I was when I heard 27th. Only 2 spots I know, but I wanted to be clear of the bubble. 


I put on some clothes, grabbed my camera and did my warm down on the course while trying to capture photos of the senior men. Cam Levins ran a stellar race, taking over the lead on the last lap and running away with the race. He is a local Vancouver Island boy who run's for university down in Utah. Too bad he wasn't on Team BC as he never ran the BC Championships. 
  
By the time the guys finished, I was turning blue according to Matt C. A ride home and then a nice warm shower was next on the agenda.  



In the end, the senior women Team BC came 2nd overall and senior men Team BC came 3rd overall. Natasha ran well finishing in 5th earning her a spot on the world team (they had better take a team this year), Lucy in 10th, Melissa in 15th, Jess in 20th, Me in 27th and Catherine in 39th. Way to go ladies!

Senior Women Take the Silver

 

What did I think of my race? It was a good experience which has opened my eyes to a few things that I must work on. It renewed my motivation for the sport and I am looking forward to what the future holds. It was fun and while I would have preferred no snow as it kept me a bit timid on the corners, the snow made it unique and a new experience for me. I cannot not be happy with finishing in the top half of the race considering it was the National Championships. I am honored to have been there, especially since I hadn't run Cross Country since 1999 prior to this year. 

I must say a quick note to the Bastion Running Club who sponsored part of my trip. Here is the president Dave presenting me with a cheque on the Monday before the race.

Up next.... After Party!

2010 AGSI Canadian National Cross Country Championships- Pre Race Events

What a weekend it was! Lots of adventure beginning right from the start! I was up at 5am on Thursday to travel down to Victoria for our 9:15am flight. I woke up to this:

 

Mel and her brother Jeremy picked me up around 5:40 (I think) and off we went. The roads were covered, but Jeremy's car was good in the snow and we had no issues. That was until we got to the top of the Malahat where we hit bumper to bumper slow moving traffic. I swear we were there between 6:45 and 7am but after that we started to move so slow. Initially he was supposed to drop us off somewhere and then we were to be picked up by someone else to head to the airport, but instead he decided that he would drive us straight there to ensure we made the flight. 

Time crept by and we slowly moved through Victoria. We even called WestJet at one point to ask if our flight was delayed. After we were told no and asked if there was anything else the lady could do for us, Jeremy asked her if she could delay the flight. She politely said no. We had to make it there by 8:45am latest or we would miss our flight. I think we arrived about 8:35. Eek, so close, but we made it. 

In the airport I found my coach Matt C, who said "I bet you wish you had flown through Vancouver eh" but he would later regret saying that, which I will get to later. 

On the flight, I saw we were sitting way at the back. I walk up to my row and find I am seated next to the lovely and talented Lucy Smith to my left and Matt P on my right. We ended up having a 50 minute delay while sitting on the plane waiting for a truck to de-ice us with bright orange and then bright green liquids. Finally we were in the air. 

We flew to Edmonton, where we had a brief stop where we did not get off the plane. 

Bye Bye Edmonton

From there we were off to Toronto. This flight seemed to take FOREVER. Eventually we got there though and while we were taxiing into the terminal Lucy turned on her blackberry to find a message from Maurice (our BC athletics team manager) that stated the Vancouver crew was still in Vancouver. You see, they were initially supposed to arrive about an hour before us and were supposed to be waiting in the airport. Instead, we found out that they waited for 2 hours on their plane in Vancouver before they had their flight canceled and rescheduled for the next day. 

So instead of meeting up with them, we collected our luggage and took a huge greyhound type bus from the airport into Guelph. Upon arrival, we checked in and I found out I was rooming with Mel! 

 

A quick change of clothes and Mel, Craig and I headed off for an easy 30' jog in the pouring rain. The rest of the time was spent getting dinner and then me trying to convince Mel to go to bed. She was on west coast time and I had already adapted to east coast time after being up since 5am with only 5 hours sleep the night before. She finally went to bed around 1am I believe. 

Friday was spent eating breakfast at the hotel, then Mel and I headed down the road to some shops where we froze our faces off walking into the wind on the way there. We bought a few things including some groceries and then headed back to the hotel. Enough time to quickly change and then we were off to the race course to check it out. It was windy, especially at the top of the hill and VERY cold. I did my usual 30' pre race routine around the course. 

 

 

 

Self Portrait? Sure why not

 

2.5km loop to the left, 2km loop to the right

 

This way?

 

Towards the finish, Left up to finish, Right for multiple loops

Later that afternoon we had a team meet, which I guess was really a 1/3 team meeting where we received our race numbers, chips and uniforms. The Junior girls were cute, going over to the Christmas tree to open up their uniform's so I had to take a photo. 

 

Dinner that night was at East Side Mario's and then some relaxing until the Vancouver crew finally arrived. We (Mel, Natasha, Catherine and myself) harassed Matt C who was staying across the street at the Delta and then just hung around and gossiped. With the race not until 1pm the following day, we didn't get to bed until around midnight. 
  
Pretty sure this is long enough, so up next.... race day! 

Stay tuned

Don't worry, a race report is coming! I arrived home late on Sunday and then worked Monday and tonight. I have days off coming, so I will work on a report I promise! For now I will just say that I had an absolute blast and that I finished 27th overall (26th Canadian). Stay tuned for the rest!

Arrived

Posting from my iPod so no idea if this will work. We arrived in Toronto after a long day. Previewed the course today and am excited for tomorrow. It is cold here today so it appears the weather followed us to the east coast. Still waiting for the Vancouver part of our team to arrive after their flight was cancelled yesterday due to snow! Anyways time for dinner shortly. Updates after the race.

Time ran out!

I meant to post earlier this week, but in the end obviously I didn't and now time has run out. The west coast has been hit with snow since Friday night. Not all the time, on and off with freezing temperatures around -11 C at night with a -18 C wind chill. Brr! BUT I did get in some good training even though it was snowy and it was good prep work for Nationals in Guelph this weekend! Speaking of which, it's 10:30pm and I have to be up and ready to go by 5:30am to head to Victoria. It is starting to snow now, calling for snow overnight. It could be an interesting drive! Wish me luck! Catch you all after Nationals!

The Rain has Come

The wet weather has arrived! The trails are muddy and the overall temperature is starting to slowly drop. The other night it rained and then the skies cleared, leaving frozen rain drops on my windshield for when I got off work at 11:15pm. Good thing the passenger side of my car leaks, so the carpet on the floor is a puddle. Makes for nice condensation on the inside of the window. Unfortunately it takes FOREVER to dry up. I just want to get home after work, so waiting for my windshield to defog annoys me. I have taken to using a rag to wipe it off, which leaves nice a nice streaky windshield the following morning. Ahh winter is on its way. 

Not a huge fan of winter. I hate being cold and it doesn't take much for me to get cold. I hate the short days as well because it makes my electricity bills and gas bills go up. I love snow though, but probably only because we rarely get a lot of it anymore and generally when it comes, it's gone real fast. 2 years ago now we had our worst snowfall in awhile. Not because we had a lot, but because it hung around for about 6 weeks. That is unusual for here. I was sick of snow by the time it finally disappeared, but running in fresh snow is the best. Fresh snow and Yak Trax. My co-workers and neighbours call me crazy.... wait, they already do that. But they tend to speak up more when it snows ;)

For the first time in awhile, I had some company for my easy run yesterday. The Westwood Boys were meeting at 8am, except I could not drag myself out of bed. Instead I got to the lake at 9am intending to run or at least start with Bastion. The Westwood Boys arrived back at the entrance at 9am, so I was able to run the first half with most of them and then the second half with Trevor. It was nice to have some company while I got extra muddy from the many puddles around the lake. 

Training is going well. I am feeling good for the most part, but still have some niggles here and there. I feel good in the workouts, but the body is giving me some aches and pains at times. I STILL have that darn lower abdominal ache, but it isn't as bad lately (has its ups and downs). But lately I have had lower back pain that seems to go into the hip and towards the sit bone. At times it can send a numbness into my right leg where it feels weak briefly then goes back to normal. The new pains must all be connected, through something stuck in either my back or hip. At least that is what I am guessing. I will have to keep an eye on it and get it checked out when I get a chance. Until then, I just have to make sure warm ups are done properly and I should be okay. 

Less than 2 weeks till Nationals!

And That's a Wrap!

The high school season is now over! Woo hoo! I love coaching the kids, but I will certainly enjoy the extra free time I will have now that the season is done. No high school practices or races to attend until March/April 2011. 

To finish off the season, our girls team and top 2 guys headed down to Victoria yet again for the BC High School Cross Country Championships. It was a cool day with very light rain at times. There were about 280 kids in each race so the course became awfully muddy by the end of the guys race. 

First up was the girls race. 

 

Girls on the start

 

 

 

Mass start

 

We had 7 girls in this event. Top 5 would score for the team with the last 2 basically as alternates in case something went wrong. The race favorite Tanya Humenuik was in the lead after one lap without anyone really challenging her. This is not surprising as she is running VERY strong at the moment and easily won the race. Not bad considering she is in Grade 10. Last year she claimed the silver medal. The second girl was also mostly on her own and then a pack of girls fighting for the bronze. This is were our top girl was for most of the race. I didn't catch the end of the race, but she was in the fight for bronze right up to the line only to get ever so slightly out kicked. She finished fourth 16:27:59 to 16:27:95. Naturally she was slightly disappointed; however, she is only in grade 9, so still has 3 more years to run the race!

The boys race was pretty much just as big. The St.George boys went out front and after the first lap our top guy Forrest was just inside the top 20. His goal was top 20 as they get ribbons and since Forrest is in Grade 12, he wanted to get a ribbon. Second lap he came around in about 11th place. He looked good and I was excited for him, hoping that he could just hold on for the last lap. He came out of the trees on the last lap having picked up a few spots. I didn't know his exact place, but not many kids had passed by yet. Turns out he came 8th place. Last week at the Island Championship he was 9th overall. This time he was 8th in BC and 2nd from the Island. Performance of the day has to go to Forrest. He is a swimmer who just runs for swim practice and for school xc. He even finished with a hole in his ankle from being spiked. 

Forrest

 

Now you might ask, why is his performance the "performance of the day" and not our top girl Miryam? Well, Miryam was expected to be up near the front, Forrest was not. So because he was the surprise of the day, he gets the performance of the day award. =) BUT, I also must note that our girls team came 7th out of 28 teams. 


Results were: For the girls: Miryam 4th, Rebecca 73rd, Hannah 89th, Tkia 95th, Carly 119th, Abigail 130th, Katelynn 155th. For the boys: Forrest 8th and Brock 45th.

 Girls awards, Miryam in fourth

Boys awards, Forrest in 8th

I got to see D at the race. With so many people around it took a text message to which I then went looking for her. Thankfully I knew her team wears florescent orange practically, so her team was pretty easy to spot. She got to ride a lovely yellow school bus to the event, hah. Thankfully we did parent drivers to this one!


Now that high school cross country is done, it's time to concentrate on my own training for Nationals, which happens to be going well at the moment. I just finished a strong week of base type training that has left me feeling good. I have no idea what the future holds for workouts as I get them 1 week at a time, but in a way I like that because I can concentrate on 1 week at a time. November 27th will be here before I know it though, so I just plan to keep myself healthy and injury free.

BC XC Race Report

Okay, I don't think I can delay this anymore. I was waiting to see if some photos surfaced from the race, but can't seem to find any. 

So as I mentioned, this was my first time running in the BC Championships since I quit the Nanaimo Track and Field club back after the 1999 XC season. I ended it on a bad note, having one of my worst BC XC races ever. I was determined to go into this race and get my revenge. 

The Prairie Inn Harriers picked me up as a 4th team member for their Senior Women's Team, along with Natasha Wodak, Lucy Smith and Jessica Sedlock. Our race started at 2:30, so another of my competitors Melissa (who lives near Parksville) and I took the 7:45am ferry from Nanaimo over to Tsawwassen. We arrived there around 9:45am to which we then proceeded to wait about an hour in the terminal until Lucy and Jess's ferry from Victoria arrived at 10:45. They picked us up and we were on our way to Aldergrove, with a few stops along the way. 

We arrived and parked on the road. When we walked into the park towards the course we saw the hill. Wow and what a hill. After a few "OMG, that is huge" we turned it into more positive thoughts about "dancing up the hill" and "it won't be that bad." 

This hill was much worse in this photo

 

We found Gary Duncan (PIH member who ran in the Master's race earlier that day) and he gave us our numbers. We then decided to walk the course discussing strategy on the way. Since my coach had not arrived yet as he didn't race until 3pm, I took tips from Lucy along the way. 

After our walk through, we relaxed a bit and then got ready for our warm ups. The 4 of us along with Natasha warmed up along the course. Guess we didn't really need that walk through after all! ha. My nerves were going crazy from the moment we arrived at the course. They lessened during the walk through and warm up, bu then as I did my drills and strides, they came back. I felt sick and wanted it all to be over. 

Before we knew it, we were on the start line. On the line were a few that I knew, along with Malindi Elmore who I knew would take the win. There were also a lot of people I didn't know. Not knowing people sometimes makes me even more nervous! Looking at start lists before the race, I changed my goal from top 10 to top 6. You see, top 6 would get selected to go to the Canadian National XC Championships in Guelph Ontario at the end of November. 

The gun went off and everyone went out fast. Malindi took off, followed by Natasha and Lucy, then a girl from Valley Royals, followed by Melissa and then the rest of us. I remember counting positions. I took the hill comfortably the first time. You see the course goes up the steep hill, along a flat section briefly before a steep downhill, flat for a short period and then up another steep hill. After that, it was a gradual down, barely flat, up a smaller hill, down and around a grass loop and up past the finish. It was a 2km loop. I was hurting after the first lap. My lungs burned along with my legs. 2 more loops I told myself, 1 at a time. 

After 1 lap

  

I just didn't have the effort today to stay up with Melissa as she slowly pulled away running strong. The valley royals girl fell back and left myself, Jessica and Catherine Watkins to jockey back and forth for 5th, 6th and 7th. These 2 ladies would pass me on the downhills, especially Jess and then I would catch and pass them on the up hills. This happened each and every hill, each and every lap. I told myself near the end of the 2nd lap, that one of us would not make nationals and I did not want the 7th spot. Then Catherines coach/fiend said "you're in good position for Nationals, the first girl doesn't count" which reminded me that Malindi was registered with Alberta athletics and did not count for team BC. 

I was hurting so much at that point that I briefly told myself fine all of us make it, I don't care what position. Matt yelled at me on the final lap to tuck in behind and play it smart. Basically to work off of them. After some "oh my god I am dying looks" towards his direction, I did just that up the hill staying right behind. Jess flew down the hill and gained some ground, but I pulled her back in on the 2nd uphill and Catherine was right there. I pushed it down the gradual hill and made it down there in front? I can't remember exactly, I was either in front on the gradual downhill or I passed them on the final climb. 

Anyways, I pushed it down the final hill hoping to god that Jess wouldn't fly passed me again. I pushed it around the field and remembered a tip that Lucy had given me. From there I pushed it to the final straight, where Matt yelled at me "She's right behind, you have go to." No idea if she was actually gaining, but I pushed it in and claimed 5th spot overall, 4th person from BC. I got the last automatic spot as the top 4 were automatic and the 5th and 6th were due to selection. This was later confirmed that they would take 5th and 6th automatically as well. 

Coming up to the finish

 

Jess came over the line shortly behind me and collapsed on the ground giving it her all and Catherine followed not far behind that. Team BC is comprised of 5 other ladies who are great competitors and people I know fairly well (Natasha, Lucy, Melissa, Jess, Catherine and myself). 

So there we have it, I am going to the National Cross Country Championships in Guelph Ontario on November 27th. I have never been to Ontario so I am excited and looking forward to it. Previous years have been cold and snowy, with last year mild. What will this year bring? I guess we will find out. 
  
We did a quick cool down, grabbed our stuff and headed out as Lucy and Jess wanted to catch the 5pm ferry. I was only able to catch the first couple laps of them mens race, but my coach Matt finished 3rd also qualifying for Nationals. Congrats Matt. Marilyn Arsenault even traveled over to watch. It was great to see her up and walking around!

 PS. For those who voted for me, I won the Wii! Thanks!