Letter from Club Cross: RNF 23rd at USATF XC

DtB asked Run N Fun's Jeff Metzdorff to tell us about his team's race at the USATF Club Cross Country Championships in Wilmingon, Ohio over the weekend. The 2007 USATF- Minnesota Cross Country Circuit champions finished 23rd of 50 men's teams at the event held on the site of last year's NCAA Division III Championships.

The former Hamline University star offers the full scoop below ...

"I traveled to watch the National Meet in Ohio last year so, I knew the layout of Voice of America Park and the high possibility for awful conditions. The week leading up to the race found me checking the weather in Cincinnati daily and seeing only rain and snow in the forecast. Saturday didn't disappoint; the snow and rain that had landed in the previous week was turning the course into a wheel spinning quagmire, and being the 5th race of the day, I knew we'd be in for a real treat.

"I won't pretend to compare outrageous conditions of the 2006 NCAA Division III national meet to what we were running in, but it was still pretty ugly. To quote Eric Pierce - "I think I ran 20k as result of darting back and forth trying to find the firmest ground.

"The Fun was coming in lacking a little of our firepower, a number of our guns were either recovering from marathons, taking finals, or attending weddings. We would've loved to have had Ed Whetham, Mike Stoick, Malcolm Richards, Sam Renneberg, or Jake Januszewski, to help us out, but we still stood at the starting line with an able-bodied and proud crew of 7.

"Personally I was disappointed in my race, I got out very conservative (I found myself in the back 10 of a 420 person race for the first quarter mile) a tactic that had been serving me well in races building up to Club Nationals. However, in a 400+ person race in the conditions we were facing, I probably should've taken the advice of my former Hamline teammates and Coach Paul Schmaedeke and got out of the gates a little bit harder. I found it extremely hard to move in the muck and mire, and was only able to move into the top 100 in the last 400m.

"Eric Hartmark led our team with a strong 54th place finish (and would've been the 7th man on a strong ex-Hanson's-Brooks squad.) Former Carleton College runner Matt Hooley bounced back from a disappointing Olympic Trials Marathon and told me he was very happy with his 28th place finish.

"All told, we were disappointed by our team placing, needless to say we were hoping for a much higher finish. We didn't let this get us down however as we celebrated at both the local Chuck E. Cheese and the great after-party held by the Columbus Running Company.”

You can find full men's results HERE.

Women's results are HERE.

Run N Fun team photo by Thom Weddle: (LR) Eric Pierce, Kelly Mortenson, Jeffrey Metzdorff, Jason Finch, Christopher Grossinger, Eric Hartmark, Michael Little.