Sandburg Eagles Fly To Portland!
Having wrapped up a very magical 2014 Cross Country season at the Nike NXN national meet in Portland, I asked the seven Sandburg runners to answer a few questions regarding their experience.
Max Lehnhardt was another strong Sandburg junior racing for the Eagles this year. Finishing in 53rd place at the State Meet, he ran a time of 15:08 - even after taking a tumble entering the "Triangle" at Detweiller Park. At the Midwest Regional, Max had one of his best races of the year as the 2nd Eagle finisher. His time of 15:44 was good for 27th place. He struggled a little at the Nike National meet, with a 17:20 time and 175th place.
Here's what Max had to say about the trip to Portland:
The coolest parts from Nike could have been really anything. The hotel, locker rooms, facilities, campus, etc. - everything there was amazing. The gear-up experience was awesome. Everything seemed unreal. We were treated like elite athletes - it was incredible. Along with having access to free food it was unreal. We also got to meet an elite runner, Ryan Hill, who is now a sub 4 miler, who didn't even run his first two years and really committed in college and became a pro runner. The whole experience makes you want to become a professional.
Well I think most people saw how my race went or at least the results. It was pretty bad. Probably one of the worst races of my season but even through all that ugliness in that race I did learn a few things for the future. First thing I learned is national races open faster than races within our state and they maintain that pace longer than we usually do at state. At nationals they stayed on the gas until roughly the 800, 1k-ish, but what we were used to was opening up hard just the first 400. Another thing that confirmed my belief was that even at nationals everyone there is still a high school guy and nothing more.
Like I said, we learned a lot and it also made me realize how close of a race nationals can be. The gap between 1st-5th is not that big and the importance of fighting for every single millisecond was not surprising to me because that's how i expect big races to be.
I liked the idea behind the course. Of course, it wasn't in its greatest shape when we stepped up but I know we have to practice running hills more mid-interval.
Most of the funny stories are probably not able to be shared. But one funny part of the trip was Tom following Jesse Reiser around like a puppy. Gotta say I'm surprised to see Tom idolize a high school kid.
The most interesting person we met would probably be Alexa Efraimson. She was really awkward and it was even weirder that she was only a year or two older than us, yet she had a big contract with Nike. Not to mention Tom danced with her also, but I'm sure you're going to hear that story about a thousand times.