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Alex Grant (top) and Collier Lawrence Past Entries   • October 24, 2007: Alex Grant • October 8, 2007: Collier Lawrence • September 24, 2007: Alex Grant • September 11, 2007: Collier Lawrence

October 8, 2007

Early Thursday morning we were off to the Minnesota - land of 10,000 lakes. Travel days always seem to take forever. A three hour layover in Denver was a good chance for some of us to catch up on some school work we'd be missing over the next two days, and the rest of us took the opportunity to catch up on the latest celebrity gossip. We finally made it to Minneapolis and after a short delay with the vans we were on our way. When we got to the hotel we went for a shake out run and to find some dinner. It was pretty late but we found a sandwich place still open. They didn't looked to thrilled that they were about to close and a bunch of scantily clothed runners walked in. After grabbing a bite to eat it was time to get some sleep.

The Minnesota golf course can be pretty deceiving. It looks pretty flat, no monster hills in sight, but don't be fooled. The course is basically a maze of rolling hills. The women had a bit of difficulty finding their way through the maze on their shakeout, there are three different courses all marked out in the same area, but we finally got in figured out after missing a couple of turns. Then, we went to an Italian place JD found a couple years ago for team dinner. After getting our bid numbers and timing chips passed out it's time to go to bed and get ready to battle (the race is huge, every ten seconds 15-20 runners finish, so we are given chips to tie to our shoes that automatically record our time and place when we finish.).

Race day is supposed to bring some pretty crazy weather- rain and thunder storms. The men race first and the weather is almost perfect, a little windy but nice. Then the women's race starts and here comes the rain - sideways in the first kilometer. Through the first two mile we have a nice pack of Cougs, then it's time to start moving and picking off the runners who started out to fast. We finished pleased with our performance. It gives us a confidence boost going into Pre Nationals because we showed we can race with ranked teams.

Our flight doesn't leave until 7-ish so we killed some time at the Mall of America. That place was insane, there were a million and one things going on. Between the amusement park in the middle and the four levels of stores, we all managed to get a little shopping done. Most of the boys got jerseys of their football teams so they can represent come Monday night. We had another layover in Denver, not quite as long but long enough for us to get bored. Lucky for us our trainer had some good ideas that kept us entertained. Try standing a creased dollar bill up on the floor and picking it up with your teeth, while standing on one foot and not using your hands. Not an easy task, Lisa got pretty close though. We finally returned to Pullman, tired but motivated to get some good training in for Pre Nationals in two weeks. That's where the racing really starts. Pre Nationals is the place to get tons of points, because there are so many teams. The more teams we beat there, the more points we are likely to get come the end of the season, which is the key to a national at-large bid.

Go Cougs!
Collier Lawrence
WSU women’s team captain