Nationals was an amazing ride that had a story book ending for the OBU guys cross country team. Ranked 17th going into nationals, the team thought they were better than that. We felt that if VIC, Lindenwood, and Aquinas ran well they would be hard to beat. However, we felt that it was anybody's race from fourth place on and that became our goal after regionals.
I was able to jump in and get 29th place with a 25:13 even though I did get outkicked by about 3 or 4 guys over the final 400 meters of the race. That was a little disappointing, but I was still able to hold on to an all-American spot. The race went out really conservative compared to what it did last year because I only went through the mile in 4:54. The second mile picked up the pace as people found their pace and settled in. I came through the 2 mile mark at 9:51. I continued to gain and close in on people through the beginning of that third mile before I really settled in about halfway through the mile. I came through the 3 mile at 14:59, still ahead of the magical 25 flat barrier. The fourth mile was the slowest by a considerable margin for everyone on our team, and it seems like the pace of the race slowed temporarily during this period. I ran a 5:24 on this mile and was really disappointed about it. However, I was able to rebound and run a 4:50 over the final mile. During the end of the fourth and the first half of the fifth mile, several people fell off the leaders pace and drifted out of all-American contention. The first mile took its toll on those who went out too fast, I guess.
Landon Willets, my former roommate, had the race of his life to close out his senior year. His previous pr was 25:33, and he was able to better that time by 19 seconds at nationals to sneak in and claim the final all-American spot. He did so with a blistering 4:40 over the final mile, probably running about 2:00 to 2:05 over the final 800. It was really awesome to finish and turn around and see my teammate and close friend coming in right behind me.
Theron had a good race as well, with another sub-26 effort that helped put the tem in a place where it has not been in recent history. Lance Goodwin, aka Tiny, ran a solid race and 26:09 to finish off a stellar freshman year. Michael Elizondo, aka Zoomdo, ran a stellar race to finish at 26:13, his best time this year and that is quite amazing that he ran that well because he did not get to train hardly at all over the summer due to injury. Jake Wright and Ricardo rounded out our top 7 and we were really thrilled to do as well as the team did. Landon and I both agree that the individual awards are nice, but in the end, it is certainly the team that we are most proud of.
*OKtrackXC.com would like to thank Daniel for taking time to write a journal and congratulate the entire OBU team for its great performance at nationals.