Track and Field Blogs - Scott Bauhs

As many of you know there was quite a fiasco at the West Regional championships a few weeks ago. I'll do the best to give a short explaination from my perspective.

About a mile and three quarters into the race we were supposed to make a sharp turn left and we didn't. I didn't even see the turn because the way we were supposed to go was blocked by fans and flags but after 20 or so seconds I knew something was wrong. I kept my composure and just figured that when my team was jogging the course the days before we had the course wrong. Then when I saw the leader of the race (Jordan Welling of Western Washington) and the lead bike coming I didn't hesitate for a second and I turned around and started my effort to get back to the front as soon as possible.

It only took me around a minute or two to get back to the front and everything was sorted out for the most part. Then around a mile and a half later the UCSD coach was on the track halting the race. Then I started laughing.

Of course we reran the race and the results of that race are what decided who went to nationals. Chico did a phenominal job of handling the day and dominating the race. Beau had a bit of a breakthrough and Michael had an amazing first race back from taking virtually the whole season off with Mono. Brenden had his first bad race of the season and ended the day nursing a sore hamstring but I'm pretty sure every team out there had some issues after the second race.

I think that UCSD actually did a pretty good job dealing with the disaster. Given the circumstances I think the outcome was as fair as possible. Some individuals may have paid a price for being too agressive but for the most part the results seemed pretty normal. Maybe they shouldn't have restarted the race but its hard to say. Anyone that got reasonably close to qualifying to nationals would have filed a petition. Reruning the race curbed that a bit. On the other hand we are trained to run 10k, not 16k and running a second race in the midday heat was not the safest decision ever.

Either way its time to look beyond it and to the biggest prize. Nationals is on Saturday and we will be leaving on Wednesday. Right now it is 68 degrees and sunny in Chico and 32 degrees and cloudy in Slippery Rock but thats not going to be a big deal. If you are ready to run, you are ready to run and conditions only make for a small difference in the outcome in my opinion (but they often make for a huge difference in excuses).

Chico is ready to go and so am I. I'm not going to try to predict how the race is going to go but I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that I am having fun out there and so is my team. Nationals is a pretty special experience and I am lucky to be going to NCAA DII XC nationals for the 4th time. In the past we have gotten pretty fired up about proving how good we were and about beating certain teams and when it starts to hurt and we aren't beating those teams or whatever its not as fun. I think that if we are relaxed and we race like we have nothing to lose then we will be our best... but what do I know.

This will be my last race as a Wildcat and I want to enjoy it.