(Photo By Jeff Adams)
In Her Own Words: Olivia Ortiz - Entry # 4
As I knew it would be, this past Saturday morning was intense facing the best competition in the state. Stepping off the bus, about an hour before race time there was a crisp chill in the air making it perfect racing weather similar to last year’s chilly conditions. The Pre State Invitational is a great opportunity to run the state course. Every year, I look forward to Pre States because I expect the weather to be cool and always a great test to measure myself to the amazing competition from all over the state. Coming into the race, I felt well prepared and was really excited to test myself. Just like every race I had butterflies but once I stepped on the start line it was all business. As soon as the gun went off, my goal was to attack the hill hard and stay up front with the other great competitors. I let the race play out by running in the middle of the front pack with about 10 other girls or more (too many to name) in order to save some energy for the second half of the race. Everyone was pushing the pace and taking many surges up front making the race unpredictable. Around the two mile, Lily Williams, Kacy Smith, and I created a gradual separation from the rest of the front pack continuing to speed up the pace. After the in-field area and starting from the back straight away, it was a race to the finish and up the hill for the third time. Lily Williams and I were stride for stride making it a close finish. I am extremely grateful to say, that I finished first with a time of 17:41.
More On Olivia
The Lakewood Ranch junior won the girls elite race in a time of 17:41.94. - 2011-10-14 00:00:00
Wow! What an exciting past two weekends filled with cross country! Last weekend, I raced in the Flrunners.com Invitational in Titusville. Going into the race I was faced with a bad head cold, but I was determined not to let it bring me down. - 2011-10-10 10:43:00
What a great cross country weekend! This weekend the Lakewood Ranch team and I ran in the Mountain Dew Invitational at the University of Florida. We all stayed in a hotel the night before since Gainesville is a three hour drive from Lakewood Ranch. That always makes for great fun and bonding time as a team. I was very excited and focused about this race throughout this week. As a team, we were excited about racing on the Gator campus again and then the opportunity to watch the college races, which is really inspiring before the start of our race. - 2011-09-26 10:20:00
My name is Olivia Ortiz and I am a junior at Lakewood Ranch. First, I want to say thank you to flrunners for letting me contribute to their incredible website! What a great opportunity and honor to be apart of. What an amazing start to the 2011 season with the first two races having intense competition, forcing everyone to get into race mode. Opening race last week was the Déjà vu Invitational in Tampa also know as the “mudfest”. - 2011-09-19 11:40:00
