Farewell Cross Country, until next Fall. I will miss you.

Pictures below courtesy of Lynn Walker and Carolynne Juarez (SF Examiner)

Yesterday was MY final cross country meet of the season with the PAUSATF. Our team's top runners are now prepping for Club Nationals in December and I'm so excited for them! To be blunt, my fitness sucked going into this race. Let's see, the last five weeks were like this: 18 miles, 19 miles, 18 miles, 40 miles, and about 33 miles before race day. In the last 5 weeks I think I had one, maybe two sessions of higher quality work. Otherwise, just plain running (or not running, depending on how you look at it). To make things really interesting, I came down with my son's sickness on Saturday (the day before the race) and I had a low grade fever of 100.4. The fever was gone on Sunday morning so I got myself together, rounded up the family and off we went to San Francisco.

Ran a couple miles warm up with a teammate and wished I had my spikes. The mud was thick, the grass was extra soft. Basically the damp fog and the rain from the day before did a number on the course... I LOVED IT! I should've known that something was wrong with me after the warm up though. I was feeling lightheaded and as soon as we stopped to change into our racing shoes my skin was completely wet with sweat (not the misty fog). It was like someone had poured buckets of water over me. I sweat a lot but never like that.

The team gathered at the starting line. Our team had plenty of women for the Open division, and there were just 3 of us for the Masters Women division. And any runner outside of the Open division had to wear a colored tag on their back... a moving target for other Masters runners, so to speak. One of the gals on the team broke the silence among everybody at the line and said, "C'mon Aggies, lets get together and do this." So we gathered in a circle and on the count of three we yelled, "PLOW, PLOW, PLOW!"

Silence again. Then the gun. The first few hundred meters were over soft, muddy grass. Then we shot up this short steep hill climb and onto a 6 foot wide trail which eventually turned into a 3 foot wide trail down the road. This is where the mud went flying. My heels slipped out of my shoes a couple of times but luckily they popped right back in with the next steps. I was having a blast! Getting dirty while racing is like icing on the cake.

Then we took a sharp left turn into 'the woods' and onto a single track. The elbows and the mud were flying, but everybody was so polite and we'd all say, "Sorry" as quick as we could so as not to lose one extra breath. The woods had more mud, wet sand, more slushy grass, big bushes with branches sticking out onto the trail, a big log to jump and lots of undulation. After the log jump we climbed another short but steep sandy hill into more 'woods' and more single track. Then the course got back onto a really wide dirt/mud puddle path and this is where everybody started to pass each other in earnest. It was disheartening to see a handful of women go by me. But I hung in there. I knew we were somewhere in the last quarter of the female runners... yes, the women in the front and in the middle were that FAST!

Anyway when the trail widens there are always a ton of people there waiting and yelling for us. That helped a lot. As we made the turn toward the street I was able to pick it up a little and then haul booty back onto the grass where we had started. One 2.03 mile loop down, one to go. I had felt pretty good through the first two miles, but my body definitely had to fight hard to finish the last two. I could feel the acidosis invade my body as soon as we climbed that first grassy hill to begin the second loop. I didn't want to shut down completely, I just wanted the acid to go away. The only thing that made it go away was to slow down a little and recover on the run. Then I would pick it up again as best as I could. I did this throughout the entire second loop because my arms would start to seize every few minutes.

I ended up passing the handful of women who passed me on the first loop, only to be caught by two of them before the last turn toward the finish. By now my body was feeling pretty beat and I just hoped nobody would pass me in front of everybody watching over the last 300 yards. Lucky, nobody did. I still don't know where I finished (but I do know it wasn't last), and I don't have my official time... but I never care much about time during Cross Country races. I do know that our Open Women won! Our Open Men and Masters Men won! And we are still waiting on official word on how us three Masters Women fared.

Immediately after I crossed the finish line, it was hard to breathe. A teammate and my husband helped me through the chute. Then after getting my bearings and catching some breath, I ran a couple miles cool down with some of the ladies on the team. I started to feel really itchy in all my hot spots: neck, behind the ears, palms, underarms, feet, torso and groin areas. Then I started to get hives and my eyes started to swell. Damn. Another episode of anaphylaxis. After finding my husband and getting into warm clothes, the paramedic at the scene was kind enough to give me some Benadryl tablets. I took one every couple of hours for the rest of the morning and afternoon. Needless to say, I crashed out hard on the way home and later on at bedtime.

In retrospect I guess I didn't do too bad considering I had a fever the day before and was fighting off an allergic reaction during the race. And I had so, so, so much fun on that course and with my team. I just love them!

I was happy to have finished in one piece without falling, without twisting an ankle, without passing out. The one thing about Cross Country racing is you HAVE to be 'awake' out there when you're running the course. You can't just zone out like in a road race. If it's a good cross country course, it will be very difficult to find a rhythm like you do on the roads. You will constantly be tested mentally (as well as physically). If you aren't paying attention on a good cross country course, you will probably fall and end up eating dirt (or mud as would've been the case yesterday), or getting injured somehow.

I firmly believe that the last few months of cross country has done a lot to improve my overall running form. My feet and ankles have not felt this strong in a couple of years. I looked at my feet this morning and I swear I have arches again!!! I hope anyone reading this gives Cross Country racing a shot next Fall. It really is incredibly fun as much as it is challenging.

Happy Thanksgiving week!
Linda Somers Smith, 48, Female Division Winner

Kara June, 2nd Female














Some of the Open Women on the wide path












Open Men under way















Olympians Alysia Johnson and Shannon Rowbury came to watch and cheer on the runners!