VARSITY ATHLETICS

November 20, 2007

Nationals: Take two...

By Esther Erb – Senior Women’s Cross Country Runner – Richmond, VA

I’ve been to nationals seven times so far during my 3.5 years at Case, but this was by far the best trip yet. After an awesome season, we worked our way to nationals and improved on last year’s standing by four places to land ourselves the highest team place at a national championship in Case history.

Thursday: Our trip started with a warm send-off from teammates and fans, in the Case van, which was meticulously decorated by some of the girls on the team. Accompanied by our police escort, this time with flashing lights, we were on our way to Minnesota.

Upon our arrival, we went straight to St. Olaf to check out the course. After a quick run, we piled back in the van to head out for lunch at Hogan’s, which is a must for anyone passing through St. Olaf. In fact, it was so good that we went back the next day after our pre-meet run.

After lunch, we showered and headed off to the Mall of America where we did a little shopping before eating dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, with all nine athletes crammed into a booth that was certainly meant for no more than six people. After all, we’re family, so we don’t mind getting elbowed every once in a while.

Friday: We got up at a decent hour and set out for campus again. This time we were able to check in and pick up our free stuff, which I’ll say was much more fitting for distance runners than the George Foreman Grill I got for outdoor. When we were done with our second lunch at Hogan’s we went back to the hotel to doll up for the athlete’s banquet.

To the banquet, we donned our American Apparel Bandeau dresses, each of which featured a different bright solid color, and each of which we wore in a different style (see the website for the 15 ways to wear the one dress). After we arrived, Coach Lanese was notified that she would be the announcer of the regional awards that night. It was nice that she got to announce my award, but sadly there were quite a few mistakes in the script, which she dutifully read despite the fact that she was aware of their inaccuracy. But hey, for having only 15 minutes to prepare during dinner, she did a great job.

Following dinner, we made a quick trip to Target in search of the film Without Limits, which tells the inspirational story of Steve Prefontaine’s career, beginning with his senior year in high school. Although we didn’t find the film, we did find the other things we were looking for and headed back to the hotel for a team meeting followed by a good night’s sleep.

Race day: We had breakfast early as usual and headed to the course. When we got there, we piled our stuff in the field house and sat around for a bit before heading out to the course for our warm-up. The atmosphere was good all morning. We had been lively on the bus and during our run we kept ourselves from thinking too much by singing and talking. Despite our nerves, we kept up the conversation and reminded ourselves that we were there to have fun while doing the best we could on that day.

As it got closer to race time, we headed back out to the line with our uniforms on under our warm-ups. It was really cold, and we knew we’d have to keep active so we wouldn’t cramp up or freeze. However, just after we arrived at our post, we spotted our teammates who had arrived at the meet to cheer us on, and they were wearing even less than we were!

After a few striders, we did the hokey pokey on the line like last year, then the dance from Remember the Titans that we learned and modified for our pre-race cheer at Regionals. A few more striders later, it was go time. We stripped down to our uniforms and positioned ourselves on the line.

The gun went off, and from there, I honestly don’t remember a whole lot. I also can’t tell you much about how other people felt. I just know that it was much harder than I had anticipated in all of my visualizations of the race, and it was not nearly what I had hoped for or expected. However, fortunately there were others on the team who exceeded their expectations and together, we pulled through to the top team finish Case has ever seen at a national championship.

Although I was very disappointed in myself for my performance, I was so proud of the team and our improvement from last year. And of course, I was ready to celebrate all that we had accomplished. After watching a very strong and gutsy effort on Dominic’s part, we all waited around for the awards ceremony before heading to Ryan Gjoraas’ house to meet up with our teammates who had come to cheer us on.!

When we arrived we received a warm welcome and applause before chowing down on some delicious lasagna that Mrs. Gjoraas had made. After a bit, our teammates and fans that had come on the bus had to head out on their long trip home. We hung around for a bit after that and chatted with our family before heading back to the hotel to shower (finally).

After a recap meeting to celebrate our accomplishments, the nine of us joined up with some friends from another team to play cards and watch Love Actually (the movie we got instead of Without Limits) in the conference room at our hotel.

Sunday: At the end of our great trip, we slowly headed back to real life (i.e. Case), and reflected on our long weekend while trying not to stress about all the work we have yet to do in our academic lives before the semester is over.

I feel like this trip to Nationals really brought our team even closer than we ever had been before, both figuratively and literally in terms of race times. The team and I have developed so much over the past four years, both athletically and as a community. For me, this trip and our team place was just the cherry to top off four fantastic seasons.

Posted by: Creg Jantz November 20, 2007 06:28 PM | Category: Women's Cross Country

Posted by: cnj4 (Creg Jantz) November 20, 2007 06:28 PM | Comments (0) | Trackback