Dallas Bowden: Big tens

Well I must say the boys in blue were a little bit dissapointed with our overall effort at big tens! we finished 5th with Wisconsin clearly dominating the race. The 8.35km course felt brutal exspecially after the 2min 40 1st km. I was sitting around 40th at this point in the race and went through the km mark in 2min 45. Although the 1st km is mostly downhill this was still unknown territory for myself. The race slowed down considerably but so did the rest of our team! Brendon was our 1st finisher in 14th place in 25.44min which was a huge run! Our next 3 place getters were 23rd, 24th and myslef in 26th with 6sec seperating us. Although we didnt finish where we wanted to i couldnt help but walk away quite happy with nearly chopping 2mins off my 8km time. We all know cross country times don't really mean much as each course is so different but this was definately a big step up for myself.

As we haven't scored any points as a team this season we really need to pull our fingers out at regionals in 2 weeks to qualify for nats. We need to finish 2nd to secure a spot and really only have 4 teams to worry about. The upside is that a lot of our tops guys didn't have the greatest race at Big Tens with a couple sick and a few other guys perhaps going out too hard. So if we can run smart and stay healthy then we should have a good chance of claiming that 2nd place. Untill then we have a couple of hard workouts and pleanty of time to freshen up. I must admit im quite excited for my first 10km but we will see what i have to say after i've actually run it!