VR Athletes Enjoy The Sunfair Experience

It was the first weekend in October and that means it’s the time of year that Sue Northey’s cross country athletes make the trip across Washington’s Cascade Mountain range and into the Yakima Valley to attend the long standing Sunfair Cross Country event.

The Sunfair was inaugurated forty-two years ago and has grown in reputation to become the place to be if you want to take part in a quality cross country meet.   With well over 2,000 entrants and races to fit a variety of talents, year after year teams from Washington, Idaho, Montana and BC make the trek to Central Washington to test their mettle at one of the biggest and best meets in the Pacific Northwest.  Held in a park-like setting over a looped course that features a number of long and very challenging hills, the course is not built for speed.   Athletes that wish to do well at this meet need to know just how fast to go out and then have the ability to work through the exhaustion that comes from climbing hill after hill.

Rachel Mortimer, a grade 9 athlete who now attends Mouat Secondary, was this year old enough to experience her first Sunfair and she made the best of the opportunity.  Rachel who attacks all her races with energy and determination took part in Flight 4 of the seven Varsity races.  As per usual, Rachel went out hard (perhaps a trifle too hard) and led through the first half of the race.  Fatigue, as it is apt to do if you are a little too aggressive at the beginning, took over at that point and Rachel was forced to give up the lead to, of all people in a race with only two Canadians entered, to Madelyn Huston (Thomas Haney).   The Maple Ridge athlete held the lead from that point on to win with a time of 19:13 with Mortimer not far behind in second place (19:32).  Both BC Girls put in good performances and their times were definitely amongst the top in any of the seven varsity races.

Erica Johnson can always be counted on to put forth a good effort in a prestigious competition and she did just that once again this year.  Entered in Varsity Flight 2, Erica fought through the fatigue and picked off several runners during the last third of the race to place fifth in the very good time of 19:32.   “I tried to concentrate on going past a few runners that were just in front of me and I was able to do that,” stated Johnson with a satisfied little smile.

Newcomer Kristian Biela, although in grade 12, has just begun serious training for cross country and the middle distance runs in particular.  Biela has worked hard during his first five weeks of concentrated training and he showed a lot of spunk in this competition.  Entered in Varsity Flight 2, Biela ran with determination and was amongst the top five places over the first half of the race.  Although the last mile of the competition proved tough going for the Sardis runner, he held on to finish with a  time of 17:35, an excellent performance for a first year runner.

Other Results by VR competitors:

Boys:
Daniel James—Flight 3 (27th) 18:59
Tanner Geary—Flight 5 (21st) 18:41

Girls:
Gurleen Gill—Jr. Varsity Race (18) 21:38
Hannah Grossman—Varsity Flight 1 (17th) 22:18
Kate Sokolowski—Flight 2 Varsity (15th) 21:16
Harneet Uppal—Jr. Varsity (149th) 26:54