CANADIAN CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS - December 4, 2004 - Sunnybrook Park, Toronto

A team of Junior Boys and Girls jettisoned to Toronto for the Canadian Cross Country Championships on the first weekend in December. Coach Frank Reynolds, a firm believer in exposing his athletes to higher levels of competition as soon as possible, felt the current crop of NorWester athletes would be well served by attending this competition.

“In my many years of coaching, this is one of the strongest group of female runners I have had the opportunity to coach. As well the boys are no slouch either and would benefit tremendously from this experience.” noted Reynolds.

Taking part in a competition of this caliber, away from home, is a cornerstone in Reynolds’ program. The athletes benefit from seeing the level they must achieve to be the best in Canada. They also get to see their heroes Kevin Sullivan, Simon Bairu and the top senior female runners. In addition they get the feel of competing at the National level. This will play an important role in their development as each athlete becomes better and moves up the chain of athletic supremacy.

The girls did fantastic. In the junior girls 5k race, NorWesters was 7th out of 12. Last year we were 9th out of 17. Our girls were much younger than most of the field of 18/19 year olds. The real story is the improvement overall by our team. Our team average last year was 20:52 for the 5k distance and this year we were 19:14 on the same course. Here’s the summary of the great performances of our female super stars: (total 148 finishers)
29 - Chantelle Groenewoud 18:52
36 - Jessica Smith 18:58
50 – Casey Berardo 19:16 (last year 20:22)
73 – Emily Farnan 19:50
76 – Ali Hudson 19:55 (last year 20:24)
143 – Katherine Shoults 22:34

All of these girls will be back for next year’s championships in Vancouver. Reynolds, who was shooting for a top ten this year, is revising his goal for 2005 to top 5 and hopefully a podium finish.

The boys ran as well as expected in the Junior 8k race, although again being younger than most of those in the field; were quite a ways back. Chris Winter again came through finishing 7th overall and earning a trip to the World Cross Country Championships next March in France. Unfortunately he was not able to score for NorWesters due to NCAA rules requiring that he had to run for Oregon. Our team was 17th out of 18 although we would have been 13th had Chris counted. Here's the boy's summary: (172 finishers)
98 – Kyle Clegg 28:03
137 – Mikey Adair 29:12
151 Roberto Phillips 30:00
157 Matt Mueller 30:22
And 7th – Chris Winter 25:33

All boys are back next year and we will be shooting for a top 10 finish, as Chris will score for us in Vancouver.

Coaches Reynolds and Ashley Weber, who oversaw the athletes’ preparation and yelled encouragement from the sidelines, were very impressed at the way athletes conducted themselves while away from home. They were true ambassadors of our club and set a standard that will be looked up to on future trips.