HARRA Cross Country Relay, 4 x 2 Miles

1st Place Overall Open Male in 41:43

The On the Run Racing Team consisting of John Hedengren, Alan Hedengren, Rudy Rocha, and myself captured the Overall Open Male Team title at the HARRA Cross Country Relay last weekend in dominating fashion for local bragging rights.

John Hedengren set the example from the gun- stunning the field with his powerful 10:15 opening leg to give his brother, Alan, a formidable lead over local team favorite, the Al Lawrence Running Club, and their leadoff, Vaughn Gibbs.

Alan set off alone over the amazingly difficult and technical course, but the second runner from ALRC ran strongly to offset Alan's strong 10:50 split, as our team moved into 2nd place, a good 10-seconds behind ALRC.

However, we had loaded the back end of the relay with one of our most experienced harriers, Rudy Rocha, running 3rd leg. Rudy caught and then put 10-15 seconds on the ALRC's third relay member with his gritty 10:28 split to give me a much needed cushion over ALRC's anchor, Drew Prisner, the former Houston Marathon Champion.

I was not aware of Drew's fitness level as he had just moved back into Houston from Austin (and now a fresh lawyer), but I figured since he was anchoring the always strong ALRC, he had to be fit. I felt quite crappy during my warm-up due to a stressful day at work (got to the race with 30-minutes to spare), but once I got going, I couldn't slow down. Passing the mile in 4:54, I pressed on to a 10:05 two-mile split, the fastest of the relays, to solidify our victory by exactly one minute and approach the fastest time we had ever seen on the course- a 41:41 by the old Houston Harriers.

But we were not done yet. Our "B" team consisting of Tom Sherwood, Chad James, Christopher Bittinger, and Matt McCurdy placed 6th overall in 47:03, while our Open Female team (and defending champions) consisting of Kristen Foxley, Liz Schwandt, Perla Rodriguez, and Laura Bennett captured third overall with their 55:49 performance, as Bennett passed and held off the BCRR Whizzers by 2-seconds for the bronze!