RunBlogRun

This past summer, we worked with our friends at ASICS America to develop a training log for cross country, http://www.flipseekllc.com/TrainingLog.html, the ASICS Cross Country training log was inserted into all seven Shooting Star Media, Inc. http://shootingstarmediainc.com publications. That totalled over 350,000 training logs being given out for Fall 2007. For anyone who missed it, we have attached it at the top of this column, again, here are a few points on how to use it!

Cross Country season is here! The meeting place of the best distance runners on the planet, cross country is a fall sport in the U.S. and a winter and spring sport around the rest of the world. In this column, the blogger takes aim at his favorite season, cross country and what it means to him....

This weekend is the NCAA Division 2, 3, NAIA cross country championships. And on Monday, in Terra Haute, the NCAA Division one championships. I will be heading out for one of my favorite events this weekend, the Nike Border Clash....

Cross country participation at the high school level, in 2007, will be it's best year ever.
With nearly 190,000 boys and 170,000 girls, and programs in 13,000 boys' high schools and 11,500 girls, the sport is thriving....

After nine years, the weather has decided to show who was boss. Seven years of superb weather have now given way to two years of rain. This year was cold, bone soaking, but the 40 high school boys and 160 high school boys and girls, the top runners from Washington and Oregon made it a memorable day....

The NCAA Division 1 Cross country was a race to end the season! I watched it in the Nike offices, as I was visiting to write about the Nike Border Clash. ATF's intrepid writer, John Nepolitan covered the race in great fashion. I have published his comments below.

First, though a couple of mine-Oregon is obviously a threat in XC again, for the first time since 1978, on both men and women's. That is Vinn Lananna and his team. Peter Tegen, the women's coach at Stanford, formerly the founding women's coach at Univeristy of Wisconsin, continues to show his talent in developing fine women distance runners!

All in all, a great year for cross country, a super year for Oregon and their very young team! And congrats to Josh McDougal, who continues to develop into a fine distance runner.

The rise of Oregon back to the top of the heap in both Men's and women's cross country mirrors the rise of Stanford a decade ago under Vinn Lananna...

Foot Locker Cross Country is one of the many reasons that American distance runners have continued to develop over the past three decades. From Rueben Reina, to Bob Kennedy, to Charles Alexander, to Ceci St. Geme, to Dathan Ritzenhein, prep American distance runners had the four regional races to dream of, where they could square off with the best prep runners from their region, run a hard 5k, and IF they were in the top ten boys or top ten girls, move on to....

It is Saturday morning, December 1, 2007. My trip to the Nike Team Nationals this year was canceled yesterday. The cold I picked up, standing in the rain at Nike Border Clash, has got the best of me. I will watch the NTN off the broadband broadcast and catch up on the Western Foot Locker regional from friends...but winter has come.

Saturday, December 1, 2007 was a very special day of cross country across the U.S. In Portland, Oregon, the fourth annual Nike Team Nationals went off, under the threat of a winter storm. In Southern California, mother nature played a hand as there were torrential rains forced changes for the Foot Locker Western Regional. The tough Mt. SAC course became a quagmire, according to photographer Victah Sailer. The course was changed to a two loop nearly road course as the race directors did not want the prepsters carried away in the Global flooding that is hitting Southern California right now...

The 29th Foot Locker Cross Country Championships were full of surprises. Both the men's winner and the women's winner are great stories. The Midwest's Michael Fout, taking the lead after two miles, ran to victory in 14:50. On the girl's side, the SouthEast's Ashley Brasovan, caught Jordan Hasay, the 2005 champ, on the last hill and pushed the downhill to victory, running 17:20. Brasovan was a big surprise, as she was only the sixth qualifier at her Foot Locker regional.

In its' twenty nine years, Foot Locker has always kept us guessing, because, in the end, it has always been two good footraces....

******

12-20-07

Thirty years ago, I was living in Montecito, California, studying at the College of the Queen of Peace on Ladera Lane. Many mornings, I would head out from the driveway and take the six mile run down to the beach, and then return, running up the hills back
to my new home.

I had two pairs of running shoes, both resoled. My NB 305w and Waffle Racers were resoled and kept me in good company as I hit the long hilly run back up to Montecito. The weather was always nice, and the beaches were great.

My back ground is pretty straight forward-a high school, college and club athlete, who got into coaching, first at Bellarmine, then Santa Clara University, then Foothill college. The week of Thanksgiving, I was given the best gift I could have dreamed of--a few hours with three of my former athletes...

The San Diego XC Trials will be a huge success this coming weekend! Ryan Hall and Dan Browne will be part of the fields this coming weekend. Sign ups are over 600 runners for the weekend! The release that came in this morning shows the details that Hunt and Geer are going to make this event a success!

Last night, at dinner with Glenn Latimer and friends, we were speaking of the cross country championships this coming weekend. The numbers are over 715 as we speak and should hit 800!
Congrats to organizers, sponsor ASICS and USATF for putting on such a super event. My only wish was to stay, but I had prior commitment to Norwich United meet in Birmingham, England on Saturday. We will have coverage of both events for you on runblogrun.com and runningnetwork.com.

My pick for the race of races will be Ryan Hall and Dathan Ritzenhein. World on the street is that both are quite fit and also word on street is for London, think in that two oh five range for our friend, Mr. Hall!

Dathan Ritzenhein and Ryan Hall should be two of the highlights of this weekend's XC extravaganza. Your favorite blogger is writing this in the Lufthansa lounge in Dusseldorf, Germany, on way to Birmingham, England, to see the Norwich International.

Shalane Flanagan and Colleen De Reuck will also be in the fray at the Winter XC champs in San Diego tomorrow. Yours truly will be in Birmingham, UK, where it is 1.23 am in the morning on Saturday.

At the time I am writing this, the Tyson Invitational is going on. On Saturday, we will provide you with Tyson highlights, World XC Winter Trials and the Norwich Union Birmingham International.

Someone said, Joe Henderson, I believe, that cross country is the meeting place of the marathoner and the miler. How true. There is nothing like a good race in the mud and muck over eight to twelve kilometers with your friends, and then carrying on about it for several hours afterwards, assisted by a few stories, and perhaps, some liquid refreshments.

Well, the cast of characters in Edinburgh this weekend, besides the 70 plus teams, will be a whos-who of distance running. From the sold out Distance Running Summit on Friday night, to the open 5k on Sunday morning, to the World Cross on Sunday afternoon, the city of Edinburgh is celebrating one of the most hallowed traditions in the world's oldest sport-the world of cross country running!

The World Cross Country had two firsts-the first time Ethiopia took all four individual medals and first time Africa gets all individual medals. Kenenisa Bekele, despite coming very close to a disasterous lost of a racing spike, in lap two, managed to keep his wits and shoe one and run to his sixth long course title. On the women's side, two Dibaba's won-you will have read on to find out!