Tom Berry Invite

The first cross country meet of the season came at the end of a fairly hard week, but that did not seem to slow me down much at all. The meet was Tom Berry Invite hosted by St. Norbert’s college in Green Bay. The course is a good one – two laps of a public park at the edge of the city. A few rolling hills dot the course, but not much for elevation change. The temperature was nearly 90, so times were slower than one might expect for the course. At the start of the race, I went out conservatively coming to the mile marker in 5:25. With my exceptional early season fitness I began to pick people off in the next miles and moved up the pack.

The four mile race seemed short to me, not only because longer distances are my strong suit, but because the race was only four miles as opposed to the normal five miles. I finished in 21:56, which was good for 6 place out of 120 runners. I felt very strong, and even had energy left at the end of the race. I think I could have gone out the first mile in 5:15 and still been fine for the rest of the race. But, I think it was a good first race of the season for me. Finishing in the top ten while feeling that I had more to give is a good place to be at this point in the season.