UAA's cross-country team in Fairbanks. Photo by Danielle Patterson.
UAA Athletes traveled to Fairbanks to compete against UAF in the Nanook Forest Clash on Sept. 9. Runners from the men’s placed first, second, third, fifth and sixth in the 8K, beating UAF with a score of 17-38.
The women’s team was bested by UAF 16-39 in the 6K course.
Team scores are calculated by adding up the placing of the top five runners, and the team with the lowest score wins.
Coach Ryan McWillimas was quoted on goseawolves.com as saying, "Really great to see this crew out there racing hard against a good team on a really tough course after a tough week of training."
John Peckham was the fastest Seawolf, completing the course in 25 minutes and 53 seconds. He came in nearly 36 seconds before the second place finisher, UAA’s George Payne.
In an email with The Northern Light, Peckham wrote, “The weather was perfect for racing. It was partly sunny and a great temperature…” He added that the course was dry and had almost no mud.
He described the Fairbanks course as “super brutal” with six major hill climbs.
His goal for the race, according to his email, was team oriented. He wrote that he was very happy with the team’s performance, even more so than with his own win.
Peckham wrote that the team started off slow and packed up at the beginning to work together and that he made a move about 3.5K into the course.
“I was feeling great and was really able to crank the last 4.5k fast.”
Peckham wrote that he didn’t really know how far he was ahead, but he was listening to the cheers of the crowd to get a sense of where the next runner was behind him.
Jordan Strausbaugh was the fastest UAA female, coming in fifth in the 6K race with a time of 24 minutes and 29.48 seconds. The next fastest Seawolf was Sofija Spaic in seventh place.
Both athletes improved their standings from the Aug. 26 race against UAF, going from sixth to fifth and tenth to seventh respectively.
In an interview with The Northern Light, Strausbaugh said that it was the hardest race of the year but that she approached the race with a mindset of practice rather than one of competition because of the preceding week of hard training.
She said that her personal goal was to beat UAF’s Delainey Zock, but she did not achieve that goal.
“Our coach [gave all of us] a girl to try to beat.”
She said that she had been given Zock, who had similar times to her’s last year.
Strasusburg said she is looking to beat Zock in future races. But, she said, the next races will be larger competitions with more schools.
“I’ll probably focus less on Fairbanks and more on my own race.”
The Seawolves will be traveling to Bellingham, Washington, for their next competition. They'll compete in the Bill Roe Invitational on Sept. 23, hosted by Western Washington University.
Last year, both the men’s and women’s team placed sixth in the race. Cole Nash came in second for the men’s team and Elle Stevens 21st for the women’s. The Seawolf men’s last win was in 2015 and the women’s in 2016.
For information and updates about UAA cross-country, visit goseawolves.com.
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