Start of the men's race
When I was running XC in high school one of my favorite courses was always Lake Sammamish State Park. In fact, 19 years ago I had one of my all time best XC races on that course, the 1989 JV KingCo race. On November 15th at the Eastside Runners XC Invitational I got a chance to relive some of the excitement of racing on that course (at least one very similar to the one we ran in high school).
Start of the women's race
You couldn’t have asked for a better day to run the inaugural 5K Eastside Runners XC Invitational. The weather was cool yet sunny and thanks to the rain earlier in the week there was no shortage of mud on the course. Based on the turnout for the races (I haven’t seen the final results so I’m not exactly sure how many runner there were, I’ll up date this post as soon as I see the results) I would say the first running of this Invitational was an overwhelming success. The mud, sand, soft grass and sharp turns made this flat, fast course challenging enough to have a real XC feel to it. And the Eastside Runners did an excellent job designing and marking the course as well with all aspects of running the meet. Also, there was a great mix of runners competing. So the more advanced runners had plenty of competition up front while at the same time it was a great race for beginners to get to experience the joys of running XC. Hopefully this race will continue to grow year after year. Who knows, maybe it will inspire a few other running clubs to put on XC races and eventually we could maybe have a mini club XC season of race here in the Puget Sound area.
For more photos from the Eastside Runners XC Invitational please check out the NWRR flickr site as well as some photos from Eastside Runners.
Below are the top ten finishers in each age group. For full results please see the Eastside Runners website.
Girls Youth
1 Chirstina Sayed 33:15
2 Janessa Darr 24:46
High School Girls
1 Kelly Brown 21:48
2 Carlie Boyle 23:16
College Women
1 Kayti Kredel 19:55
2 Marie Kiekhaefer 21:19
3 Stephanie Kiracofe 22:17
4 Margaret Hanscom 22:24
5 Stephanie Sackman 25:13
Open Women
1 Rose Wetzel 18:20
2 Lia Slemons 18:26
3 Susan Ashlock 18:33
4 Megan Johnson 18:45
5 Erika Daligcon 19:22
6 Andrea Garvue 19:49
7 Claire Hoffman 19:55
8 Camille Connelly 20:03
9 DiDi Martiniello 20:08
10 Erica Pitman 20:09
Masters Women 40-49
1 Karen Steen 19:01
2 Alyssa Tower 19:05
3 Christina Ashby 19:45
4 Shelley Neal 20:02
5 Carla Darr 20:09
6 Francie Faure 21:30
7 Heather Slee 21:50
8 Molly Hurd 22:05
9 Erin Finnegan 22:08
10 Julie Westcott 23:20
Masters Women 50-59
1 Debbie Newell 24:40
2 Sabina Hawkins 25:49
3 Sherri Prather 28:40
4 Antonette Zagala-Bishop 35:59
5 Sherry Stout 43:05
Boys Youth
1 Landon Petterson 19:00
2 Robert Sekinger 22:55
3 Jake Howe 23:34
4 Troy Horn 25:44
5 Parker Hansen 26:26
High School Boys
1 Aiden Irish 15:55
2 Taylor Guske 16:48
3 Andrew Van Ness 17:22
4 Chad Skiles 17:41
5 Michael Milbank 18:47
6 Nick Howe 18:58
7 Nolan Welfringer 20:54
8 Mitch Gogert 21:07
9 Neil Vincent Roberts 21:42
10 Carsen Dean 24:02
Open Men
1 Mike Sayenko 15:12
2 Brian Conrath 15:16
3 Jon Murray 15:18
4 John Timeus 15:26
5 Caleb Knox 15:39
6 Yon Yilma 15:50
7 Brett Winegar 15:57
8 Jon Hickey 16:02
9 Ahrlin Bauman 16:03
10 Scott Halliday 16:11
Masters Men 40-49
1 Tony Young 16:01
2 Sean Messiter 16:39
3 Kevin McGinnis 16:54
4 Paul Abdalla 16:57
5 Carl Winter 17:06
6 John O’Hearn 17:06
7 Bob Brennand 17:19
8 John Guza 17:24
9 Doug Babbit 17:48
10 Lance Logan 18:00
Masters Men 50-59
1 Michael Smith 17:03
2 Henry Wigglesworth 17:39
3 Mark Billet 17:53
4 Denis Villeneuve 18:34
5 Frederick Motteler 18:36
6 Michael Allison 18:41
7 Bob Prather 18:45
8 Jerry Zyskowski 18:55
9 Win Van Pett 19:09
10 Chuck Dooley 20:37
Masters Men 60+
1 Jim McGill 22:25
2 Rod Brown 24:24
3 Steve McCracken 26:04
4 Gary Wright 32:27