Unlike most of the cross country events, this meet was separated into different sections. The top two runners of each team ran in the 2 mile varsity invitational which is the hardest one to qualify in. Two more groups were created for the third and fourth placed runners.
Clovis North creates their invitationals in this manner to make it easier and to keep the chaos at bay. Along with this it makes it easier to to track the hundreds of runners participating in these events. Along with a strange way of organization, the meet was held at night creating a few problems with visbility.
Recovering from his injury, senior Soren Hoffman was kept out of the meet in order to have the best performance for the West Sequoia League championship, Nov. 12. Still traveling in China, Glen Wang, who is still traveling in China will soon join the team, Nov. 1, for the West Sequoia Championship, Nov. 12.
Running in 3rd and 4th place varsity team, junior Michael Fu and sophomore Isaac Hoffman both broke their personal records.
Junior Michael Fu finished the race with a time of 12:45. Sophomore Isaac Hoffman returned to the meet after missing a few races due to injury, despite this, he made his season record of 11:38
Holding the new title for the varsity runners in the FC cross country team, Isaac hopes he can better his pacing.
“I felt pretty good,” Isaac said. “I started out slow, yet I picked up my speed towards the end. It’s hard to balance the speed for the first and second mile. Hopefully I can be more consistent on my first mile and keep a better measure of time”
Running in the darkness, Fu found this invitational harder than the other meets.
“This is a very different race from the previous meets,” Fu said, “Our race starts at 7:40 and I finished the race without glasses. Even though the trail is well marked, it is still very difficult to find the course.”
Working on each runners pace is a difficult task, yet Coach Daniel believes that there is just a little more work to be done.
“Michael’s first mile was right on the pace, but his second mile should be faster.” Daniel said. “Isaac has improved a lot. Although he wasn’t able to practice a lot, his form is much better than he started in the season.”
The Eagles will next compete in the West Sequoia League Championship, Nov. 12.
This writer can be reached via Twitter: @fmichael_0501.
