Trey LaNasa: What's Happening In The Panhandle

Another great week down in the 2012 season of cross-country here in the panhandle. While many of the local teams went to the larger meets (Jim Ryun, Mt. Dew) There were two significant meets run in our region, Lincoln Invite in Tallahassee and the Wild Cat Invite in Pace.

Brief Recap:
 
Lincoln Invite: Having previously run Tom Brown Park last year (17:59) my first hand experience is that the course is slow and they have some nasty hills. Overall, the times reflected that a little bit and the heat may have factored in the times being slower than around some of the state. 
As my team wasn’t at the meet I outsourced the race experience from one of my good buds, Joseph Garcia, a Lincoln runner for his perspective on the race.
 
"We ran at 10:30. It was really hot, lots of hills, the race was really close because the first two miles the top five were in a close pack. Then the leader started to pull away in the last mile. Everybody in the front was pacing off each other the whole time basically until the end.” 
 
Third place finisher Travis Covert had this say to say:
 
“The race was set pretty late in the day. At least for the guys it was around 10:30 and it was HOT. Just about as hot as it was for Lion's Roar so you can imagine I'm sure. This course was two loops at Tom Brown Park and both loops had about a 600 meter incline in the middle of it so not one you'd really want to try getting a PR on, but still a pretty fun course to race. The competition was decent. The top three were under 17 minutes and then the next couple kids were all within a couple seconds of each other I think. A kid from Chiles, Cade Zimmerman, led the first mile and a half or so until this guy from Graceville named Hunter Potts goes blowing by both me and Cade. I am not too sure what happened on the girls side other than Kristin Sweeney from maclay winning by a mile with a sub 20 minute 5k”
 
Unfortunately I couldn’t get any girls to respond for the once in a lifetime interview. 
 
Wild Cat Invite: For the 40th anniversary of the meet it was the largest they’ve ever had with 21 teams racing of which two were out of state. The overflow made it a tight start but the meet was ran smooth.
 
Boys Race: One word. Crazy. So, from the perspective of a 6’1 sophomore sitting in the third row of our guys team, next to fellow sophomore Joe Guidry, the start was PACKED. No exaggeration, 140 guys lined up with boxes barely able to fit two across. The race started and everyone just went! Honestly, I’ve never been in the situation with 100 guys in front of me…. but it happened. Then, I see a guy absolutely face plant in the grass (would have been funny if I wouldn’t have been racing). Next thing I hear is BANG BANG BANG, we get called back. My only thought was, thank you Mr. Official. We lined up again and same thing as last time, every runner shoots out and gets in front, which was fine for our first four runners who were comfortably in the lead pack behind Thomas Howell and Nick Morken but not for me and my teammate.  The way to the front was probably the worst experience of elbows and shoulders to the rib cage I’ve ever had to deal with but even so we made it to the chase pack without too much time lost. The first mile passed pretty harmlessly in about 5:10 with the leaders at 4:59 I was told. The second mile was much the same. Approaching the second mile we were a little slow at 10:30 and my teammate Tim Bulger surged like he was possessed and I went with him. We ran the last mile together with the other guys in close pursuit. Overall it was a good productive race for the team.
 
Girls Race: Honestly, I was getting ready for the boys race as they were running, but I picked up that the girl’s race went out really hard also. The race was strung out a little and won in about 19 flat so some good times were being dropped during the girls’ race too. The course is very spectator friendly being three laps around a field. The commentating is probably the most unique thing about this race because you can even hear them talking about the race and commenting on the leaders when your running and it is quite funny!
 
That is about it for what went down in the Panhandle this weekend. I’m definitely looking forward to next weekends meets for some more coverage of the region.
 
“Live with guts, train with guts, win with guts.”
 

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