Pete Magill, I’m worried about. Now 46, he’s still kicking M40 butt in cross country. Saturday he won his second masters XC title this season, taking the USATF Club race in Ohio (after falling in the mud). (Here is video of his finish.) In October, he won the 5K race in Saratoga. My concern: Will Pete have any energy left for track season? Just kidding. He gets stronger as the air grows warmer. Another shout out goes to Dave Clingan, who coaches a youth club up in frozen Portland, Oregon. At the national Junior Olympics XC meet in Kansas, his 11-year-old runner Paige Rice won the midget girls 3K race in 10:58.57, beating a slew of 12-year-olds. Her team took sixth of 19.

Dave writes:

Conditions in Kansas were severe. Rim Rock (Farm, designed by former KU track coach Bob Timmons, who lives nearby) is a cool place to run, but not in such nasty weather. Snow on the ground, 25 degrees and really intense winds.
A couple of large tents blew off the ground and landed on top of my rental car. I haven’t seen so many little kids bawling in my life. It was too much for the younger athletes.
Except Paige, that is. Running against girls a year older, she crushed the competition, winning by 17 seconds in the Midget Girls race. It was amazing.

I also got a rundown on the USATF club race from Pete Magill, who also congratulated Dave with this note:

Sorry to hear that the younger athletes had to endure such miserable conditions. It must have been hard. Hell, a good percentage of us old adult runners were bawling our eyes out at the conditions in West Chester!
While the weather actually warmed up a little by race time (I’m thinking mid-30s under gray skies), there was still some snow on the ground, and where there wasn’t snow on the ground there was melted snow – meaning lots of mud! Also lots of very uneven grass and (between the mud and grass) exceptionally poor footing.
The race itself was a blast. Well, after the first mile it was a blast. I spent most of the first mile concocting and then rejecting various excuses for dropping out of the race (a new record for me! … usually I make it to at least mile 3 before going through this routine!). The quad strain I’d gotten the previous Sunday and then a very nasty bout of allergies mid-week (so bad I missed two days of work) had me feeling like absolute crap. But I had the vague hope that my body would somehow work through it and get into a groove. And that’s exactly what happened!
By mile 3, I was feeling so good it was almost laughable. The race pace felt like a tempo run, and I was thinking, “Man, when is this going to pick up, because if this is all the other guys have got, then the race is over now.”
And, naturally, that’s when I hit a very slippery patch of mud on a turn and went right down on my ass, sliding a good 10-15 yards before coming to a stop. The front pack rudely kept running. And suddenly I was looking at their backs shrinking into the distance.
Of course, my first thought was that I should panic completely. But that only lasted a second. I still have vivid memories of falling at Portland in the Club Championships back in 2004. That time, I tried to get back into the race too quickly after having the wind knocked out of me during the fall, developed a nasty stitch, and struggled to get third in the race. So this time I tried a different plan. I calmly climbed to my feet and then took my time getting back into the race.
And here’s the amazing thing: as I caught and then passed the runners ahead of me, they actually made the effort to tell me things like, “Great job, Pete,” and “Way to get back into it!” Unbelievable. Only in a masters race do your competitors waste breath to encourage fellow runners!
Anyway, I finally caught Tracy Lokken, last year’s champion and the leader at that time. And I did what I absolute loathe other runners to do – I latched onto him and just dogged him for the next two miles. And waited for him to put the pedal to the metal, because Tracy is a VERY strong distance runner.
He won our Masters Marathon National Championship at Twin Cities this past September (beating Danny Martinez, Dennis Simonaitis and Paul Aufdemberge, among others), and, well, he was the defending Clubs champion! I figured he’d know I had a good kick, so I figured he’d want to lose me. So we went through mile five, and he hadn’t pushed the pace.
And I thought, “Well, now mile 6 is going to be the most painful experience of my life.” But then he didn’t push it during mile 6 either. And as we started to approach the finish, it occurred to me, “Wait a minute, I think Tracy’s having an off day.” And then, just before 6 miles, he actually moved aside to let me pass.
Well, my first thought was, “Okay, now I get it. He’s trying to set me up – let me take the lead, then dog me until he starts his kick, thinks he can catch me off guard.” So I took the lead. But then I immediately slowed the pace, unwilling to play his game. And I swear, I must have looked over my shoulder 25 times (no exaggeration) as we headed into the final stretch. But Tracy wasn’t playing a game with me.
Leading for all those miles had simply sapped his legs. So with 150 meters to go, I took off. And made sure that the first thing I did after crossing the finish line was to turn around, shake Tracy’s hand, and let him know that I knew that he’d done all the work. But hey, it’s the club championship, and my team needed me to get as few points as possible.
And then the real fun started. Because as I was shaking Tracy’s hand, I was also looking down the finishing stretch. And lo and behold, there was Jeff Ambos (our 2nd man) kicking in ahead of American masters record-holder in the 10,000 (track) and Front Line’s 2nd man Paul Aufdemberge.
Well, Tracy’s with Front Line, and we knew they were the team to beat. But we figured our only hope was to beat them in the 4-5 man spots, since their top 3 were so invincible. And here I’d gotten their number one man, and now Jeff (in his first masters cross-country championship) had beaten their second man! And no sooner was I giving Jeff a hug, than here comes our third man, Michael Buckhoff, also running in his first masters cross-country championship!
Soon after that, David Olds came blazing in as our fourth man. Followed by the brothers Arsenault (Rob and then Dan), and then our 7th man, Kevin Barda! We’d run out of our minds! In fact, our 7th man beat the 4th and 5th men from every other team except Dirigo (who surprised for 2nd place in the team competition), and he beat most of the other teams’ third men too!
After being the butt of relentless jokes about our name in the lead up to the race, we Fluffy Bunnies had won the championship!
Okay, time to get back to the real world.