WolfPack Cross Country Competes In Two Weekend Events

The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack cross country team competed in a pair of events this weekend (Oct 24-25). Head Coach Carmin Mazzotta has this recap:

Sat Oct 24 -- BC Cross Country Champs, Beban Park, Nanaimo

3 of our runners on the men's squad and 5 of our female student-athletes competed at the always competitive BC Cross Country Championships in Nanaimo on Saturday. This year the organizers combined the top Junior (18-19 yr old), Senior (20+) and Masters (35+) athletes all into one race for the men and one race for the women. This competition includes not only top university teams like UVIC, UBC and Trinity Western, but most of the top club and professional runners in the province as well. There are current and former Olympians in the fields, and in particular in the women's race, some of the top young females on the planet, as some in the Junior Women's age bracket have been to World Youths and other major global championships and held their own against the top runners from Kenya, Ethiopia and other countries. With 66 women and 102 men entered in the respective races, this led to more of a big-meet feel and to fast times. The course was also slightly short, so for the women, the 6k course was actually probably closer to 5.6k and the men's 8k was closer to 7.5k.

Leading the way in the women's race for us was Rachel Lobay (Kelowna, BC) , who ran an outstanding race to finish right in the middle of a pack of women from UBC, Trinity Western and UVIC. Team Captain Alesha Miller (Vernon, BC) held on to finish 29 seconds behind Lobay. Rachel was 23rd in the Senior Women's category and 38th overall; Alesha was 28th in the Senior Women's and 44th overall. Emma Starko (Tswwassen, BC) and Nicole Vermey (Kamloops, BC) worked together and finished 3 seconds apart, with Emma pulling away slightly in the closing stretch, while Christa Miller (Vernon, BC) put together a solid effort to round out the team's efforts. Even adjusting the times by adding 90 to 100 seconds to make up for the shorter distance, all of the athletes who competed at the 2014 edition of the BC Cross Country Championships -- the Miller twins, and Nicole Vermey -- improved on their times this year, with Christa Miller running approximately 90 seconds faster than in 2014 and Vermey going through 5k en route to 6k faster than she ran 5k in the 2014 Junior Women's race. The adjusted times were also personal bests for Lobay and Starko.

On the men's side, Brennen Smith, who trains in Victoria as a triathlete and competes for TRU in Cross Country through TRU-OL, ran his first race in a WolfPack singlet. Smith, who just turned 18 on Sept 17 and is only a first-year Junior, ran a solid race while struggling with a head cold to finish 43rd overall and 15th amongst Juniors. Men's Team Captain Conlan Sprickerhoff (Willians Lake, BC) closed well over the final 1km to finish within 3 seconds of Smith in 45th overall and 27th in the Senior Men's category, while Tony Kiprop (Eidoret, Kenya) held on to finish a further 6 seconds back of Sprickerhoff in 48th overall and 30th in the Senior Men's category. 9 seconds separated the 3 men at the finish -- a solid display of quality team running in a race situation. Impressively, even after adding 100 seconds to make up for the 500m differential, which is more than enough at the pace these men were running, this resulted in big personal bests for all three runners, with adjusted times in the low 27min range over 8km for all 3.

Though we've still got a ways to go before we can legitimately compete as a team of 5 to 7 (5 runners score in cross country and the 2 additional runners can serve to displace other teams in scoring) at a CIS National Championship race, we now have at least a couple individuals on both the men's and women's sides that can be in the mix and hold their own at that level. We intend to grow that number as we continue to build the program in the coming years.

Sun Oct 25th -- Kal Park 9.5k, Kal Park, Vernon

4 males and 2 females competed for the Wolfpack at the Kal Park 9.5k race today. UBC-Okanagan brought their men's side, which offered great competition for the 4 Wolfpack men. Ali Burnett ( Quadra Island, BC) and Trine Flecks (Voldum, Denmark) (finished 2nd and 3rd, respectively in the women's 20-29 age category on the hard and hilly course. Etienne Lavigne(Russell, ON) had a gutsy effort, cracking the top 10 overall and finishing 3rd in the 20-29 male age category. Riley Kouwenhoven (Kamloops, BC) , Josef Perszon (Kamloops, BC) and Adrien Noble (Kingston, ON) also competed for the Wolfpack on the men's side.

Next up for the Wolfpack is the Larry Nicholas 9k in Kelowna on November 1st. The entire Wolfpack Cross Country team will be racing -- for most of the runners, this will be their last competition of the season. The women will run a specially designed 6.5k course while the men will run 9k. UBC-Okanagan will bring both their men's and women's sides -- this will be the third match-up of the two schools with their full teams.

A decision will be made within the next week to 10 days about which athletes on the team will be representing TRU at the CIS National Championships in Guelph, Ontario, the epicenter of Canadian distance running, on Nov 14th.