It is every runner’s worst nightmare.

At last Friday’s meet, that nightmare came true for Reo Miranda, freshman.

“I lost my shoe at the mile mark and it was half way on and half way off,” Miranda said. “I finally decided to just take it off and ran with only one shoe.”

Miranda placed fourth for the men’s cross-country team and received minor blisters on his foot.

“I was really nervous how it would affect my time, but I did OK,” Miranda said.

The Mt. San Antonio course consisted of flat ground in the first mile, switchbacks and minor hills in the second, and two large hills in the third mile with a repeat of the first mile in the last mile of the race.

“It was a great race for me,” Jimi Duffin, sophomore, said.

“It’s a very hilly course and I took it out slower in the beginning of the race and slowly started to pass people as they started to fade in the middle when I was feeling fresh.”

As the majority of the runners started to fall back on the steep hills, the Warriors powered through and were able to work together as a team.

“In cross-country, the teams with the lowest points place higher, so we were trying to work together to get as few points as possible,” Miranda said.

With the next race being two weeks away, the runners are given the opportunity to continue training and working toward being their best.

“We practice every day except Sunday to make sure we get as much mileage as possible,” Miranda said. “It’s all about building speed and endurance.”

Coach Dean Lofgren said that cross-country is a high-risk sport.

Lofgren added that the Warriors are training to keep themselves not only in shape, but in good health, as well.

“I am trying to train smarter and not kill myself every practice,” Huffin said. “It’s about being consistent and not wearing myself down.”

The women Warriors did equally as well on Friday’s meet, placing ninth out of 23 colleges.

“I think I did pretty well in comparison to my previous races,” Brittany Householder, sophomore, said.

“At first, walking through the course I thought it was going to be really hard but it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

Anique Villegas and Nicole Sroczynski ran the three-mile race in under 19:00, with Sroczynski earning her second medal in the last two races.

Both, Villegas and Sroczynski, set new personal records.

“Everyone’s time was really good and everyone was happy” Householder said.

Although the women’s team is missing their fifth runner and at this time does not qualify for the state championship with five runners, the women are continuing to pursue excellence and are on the right track to make it to the state finals as individual runners, which the women are excited about.

“Hopefully our missing woman can come back so we can make it to state as a team, but as a group everyone is getting stronger and gaining more confidence,” Householder said.

Next week the Warriors will be preparing for the SouthCoast Conference Championships Oct. 26 at L.A. Pierce College.