It was a particularly windy Thursday morning.
As the Warriors took their marks behind the starting line, the murmurs of eager runners rose as the wind whipped across their faces.
The signal went off and a sea of uniforms charged forward being led by the blue and white banners that guided their path.
Mt. San Antonio College was in the lead, with Reo Miranda, freshman, following close behind as the pack of runners slowly started to spread out on the first loop.
The pack then vanished behind a large golf course and eager coaches and spectators waited patiently by the finish line.
In the distance, L.A. Trade Tech and Cerritos charged to the front with David Rosales, freshman, following closely, leading the EC men’s team.
“We came in ranked third and we were hoping to go after one of the two spots in front of us, and that just didn’t happen today,” Dean Lofgren, coach, said.
Although the Warriors trained heavily between races, the course at Griffith Park proved to be the biggest battle the Warriors faced in last Thursday’s race.
“The course was really long and boring,” Rosales said. “I was tired, my body just hit a wall at the 3.5 mile mark.”
The loop around the golf course seemed to be the hardest part of the race for several of the Warriors, including Nicole Sroczynski, freshman, who placed sixth for the women’s team.
“It was too hard for people to get out that far so it was really quiet out there, but our coach, Sean Sheil, did his best to meet us at the end of the race course,” Sroczynski said.
Unlike several of the other coaches, Lofgren and Sheil do their best to give words of encouragement and advice to their runners as the race is in progress.
“It sucked a lot that our coach wasn’t out there in the golf course because they are usually out there telling us to get in front of the guy in front of us and when to move forward,” Rosales said. “When you are alone, you have to figure out everything on your own, which can be a little difficult.”
Although the men’s team did not meet its high goals, the women stepped up their game and qualified for the Southern California Regional Championship.
“We’ve had a rough couple of practices. We don’t really peak at this point, we just run through it,” Sheil said.
With several of the women recovering from injuries, the women remain in the top 13 in the South Coast Conference Championship and will race against the top five schools in the state, giving them the competition they need to improve for state finals.
As the Southern California Regional Championship quickly approaches, the teams are preparing for the next few weeks with intense training, strength and conditioning routines, mile repeats and mile intervals as well as hill training.
“We were expected to do better, and I wish I could have gone faster,” Anique Villegas said. “I just have to train through it because it’s not always a physical battle, but a mental one also.”
