This day turned out to be eventful. It was very cold in windy in Calgary this time. Such a difference from last year’s weather, when we had 25 degrees or more, well into September. Now we were freezing cold as soon as we got out of the bus.
Speaking of bus – we took a short drive away from the race area, to find some more bathrooms. When we came back, Gerhard was about to park in front of an SUV. He turned in too early and we heard a “CRUNCHING SOUND” and Gerhard said “tell me I didn’t do that”. Well, he did. Most of the front of the SUV was ripped off by our bus’s large side and back bumper. The bus just had a couple of scratches and a bent bumper, but that SUV- boy it was wrecked good! So, Gerhard had to stay and deal with this issue as the women were getting ready to run their race.
Our girls ran really well for the 4 km race, and it was exciting to see such a strong field overall. Our women’s team did a very good race altogether, and I am confident they will only get faster from here. Most of them said they felt so-so during the race, so I believe by the end of the season, our team will make some major damage.
When the women’s race was over, Gerhard and the cops had finally finished all the paper work so he could come and watch the men’s race.
For the men’s 6 km race, it was also very competitive with Kip and Willy from Lethbridge dominating the race. I ran as hard as I could from the start, and still I was in the back of the field. I worked my way up, and I was quite happy to finish in 11th place overall with the time 20:46. More exciting was that our Andrew Pohl was 40 seconds ahead of me, beating some very fast runners, and Buddy Brown about 15 seconds ahead of me. That bodes well for the future races. We are indeed lucky to have such fast new runners on our team! I have a feeling our men’s team will be hard to beat at the ACAC championships.
All in all, a great Augustana day and a fun race, in spite of the chilly weather.
