Pilots grab conference-title in epic battle!

I am sitting in the plane that is bringing us back from San Diego to Portland, which gives me some time to reflect on an extremely emotional morning. We FREAKING WON THE CONFERENCE-TITLE. For the first time since 2008, the Women Pilots are taking home that trophy. It is currently sitting in my lap, as I got assigned to carry it around all day. Now I don’t just have sore legs from running really really hard, but also sore arms from carrying that trophy everywhere… ;)

But let’s begin at the beginning. We had an extremely quick, efficient trip, with less than 24 hours in between leaving Portland and racing the next morning. We left school at 930am to get to the airport. After a 2+ hour flight we got to San Diego, went straight to the course, and after that straight to the hotel for a shower, on to dinner, followed by the traditional pre-race talk and sleep, because we had to wake up before 7am in order to be awake enough to give it our best at 10am!

Although we expected the course to be fast and easy, it turned out to be quite hard when we actually checked it out. Each loop had about 1200 meters of flat running on the grass, followed by small hills and lots of tight curves the next 800 meters. We had to run three laps. The goal was for Lauren to beat everybody, and Parkes and I were assigned to stay with BYU’s and San Francisco’s second girls (and then hopefully outkick them). In the pre-race meeting, Ian told us that it was going to be an extremely close 3-way battle, and that he wouldn’t look at the results as much but more at how we raced. He told us that he would be happy if we all raced our absolute hardest in the last kilometer. I think that stuck with us, because in that last kilometer we each ended up passing several girs. And that is how we got the title, because the difference with BYU in second was only 2 points, with another 3 points separating BYU from San Francisco.

If you have followed the livestream, you know that for most of the race, it wasn’t looking good for us. The San Francisco and BYU teams took it out hard. Soon, Lauren was running all on her own in front (she ended up running the last 5k by herself, in front, winning by about 30 seconds: an incredible performance!), and I was on the back of the front pack. I wasn’t too worried, as I had contact with the pack, yet when we got to the hills I quickly lost contact and couldn’t make up on the straight-away. It felt like the entire BYU & San Francisco teams were running in front of me, and at that point I was only the second Portland-runner, and nowhere close to their second runners. Actually, it didn’t only FEEL like it, it was exactly what was going on. At one point Ian screamed to me that I was just behind BYU’s FIFTH. With and additional FOUR San Francisco-girls in front of me. I was already in a dark place but after that it really felt like a ‘‘Mission Impossible.’’ Luckily Parkes came from behind to help me out, and I could stay with here for a while. We still weren’t really passing people though. With a kilometer to go Parkes took off, and I tried to go with her. With 500 meters to go one of the guys screamed to me that I was in 11th, and needed to pass one more girl in order to finish in the top-10. I was able to catch the BYU-girl in front of me and quickly had a gap. But then after the last turn and with 100 meters to go the girl came back, and I needed to sprint out of my mind in order to leave her behind me. Afterwards, Anna, who finished right behind me (with Taryn finishing right behind her), said that she saw it all happening and almost wanted to scream to me to warn me ;) Luckily I held her off.

And then the emotions came. I was pretty sure we were 3rd, and I was disappointed with my race. When you have finished as high as 8th 2 years before and your goal pre-race was to be at least top-5, and your assignment was to stay with the top-2 girls of the other teams and you did none of that… And when it is cross country and you are running for your entire team and school and you know how badly everyone wanted that Conference-title…

And then 10 or 20 minutes later, the men’s coach told us we won. By 2 points. Lots of screaming. To which said coach then added that the results were still very much unofficial. Oops. Another 5 or 10 minutes and we finally heard the official results. Pilots in 1st!

And then we saw the men running a gutsy race to get second, and then we went on the podium, and then we took lots of pictures in front of the ocean and the palm trees, and then I realized all my friends and family at home had been following along on the livestream, and then we drove to San Diego University for a shower and to the beach for an icebath and some sunbathing, and now.. Now I am really freaking tired but even more really freaking proud of this group of girls. Onwards and upwards. In two weeks, we will be back in California for Regionals. Hopefully on the way back from that meet I can write in the plane that we are going to Nationals… 2 weeks to recover & get ready!