Weekly Update

November 14, 2011

Eddie Albarran completed the cross country season with a 44^th place finish at the state meet Saturday in Jefferson City. The Oak Hill course was made especially challenging with a pretty strong southerly headwind a wet and soggy course. Eddie’s time of 17:06 wasn’t very close to his personal best and Vianney school record, but the conditions slowed everyone over the full day of racing. Only three runners on the day broke 16:00 compared to almost a ten last year.

Eddie had a challenge ahead of him when he was not near the lead pack at the mile, but a strong second mile and a courageous third mile over some very hilly terrain brought him over twenty spots to his finishing position. For the entire state competition, Eddie finished 54^th out of 680 competitors if all times were combined. It was a great finish to a great season for Eddie and all of the Griffins.

But Fast Eddie wasn’t finished there. Last weekend Eddie traveled to Terre Haute, IN to compete in the Nike Cross Nationals regional race. Eddie had to have the qualifying times to even enter the race and he is the first Griffin to ever compete in such an event. The course is set up more like a European course and unfortunately the wind was like the White Cliffs of Dover. The runners hit the 30 mile an hour head wind at an especially cruel time as the finish was a quarter mile long straight shot right into its teeth. The Nike regional featured the best runners from five cross country rich states—Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan—so Eddie for sure going to be running with some very fast company. He finished with a time of 17:26 at took 192 out of almost 400 runners. The experience is invaluable and the memories will be forever. Congratulations once again to Eddie on a terrific season, his first season as a full-time harrier.