Kirsten O'Hara jogs down memory lane
at Balboa Park

When I drove down the street toward Balboa Park the other day, I started to see things that looked strangely familiar to me. As I parked my car, the busses with the young athletes in them pulled up - the stars were arriving. I felt nervous for them and I had to stop myself from going inside their young minds and feeling what they must have been feeling right about then. As the busses parked around the corner, I made my way with the other spectators over to the course. I wanted to get on that infamous course to jog my memory of when I ran 21 years earlier. Of course, I had to pull out a map and hold it so that it lined up with the street so that I could figure it out. Once I figured out which way to go for the start and I started to jog. I started to remember the course.

from Palos Verdes to San Diego, 1983

I was a senior at Palos Verdes High School, in Palos Verdes Estates a suburb of Los Angeles just a two-hour drive up the highway from San Diego, in 1983. I had only started running the year before as a junior. With a year of running under my belt, I qualified for, what was then called, the Kinney Cross Country Nationals by winning the Western Regional qualifier at Woodward Park in Fresno, California. The national event rotated every other year from San Diego to Orlando, Florida. 1983 was the year that it was held in San Diego. I was more than a little disappointed to have missed the Orlando trip since San Diego really just down the road for my family and me. I still took the 40-minute plane trip there and back they provided for me, though!

When I arrived in San Diego, we were checked into the beautiful Hotel del Coronado. Having a hotel on the sand was incredible. A few of the girls decided to get a light run in that first night and, since the tide was out so low, we ran on the hard packed sand on the beach. I spent a lot of time with the girls from the West. I still see a few of them and we still talk about that trip. The whole season you are challenged by these same girls and consider them threats but when you come to Nationals you then get to meet them and hang out with them.

lifelong friendships formed

Sylvia Mosqueda was on this team and became one of my closer friends. Since we ran in different CIF divisions, there were many times, especially late in the season where I would check out her races to see what mark she ran and compare them to mine. She did (and still does) look so mean when she runs that I thought that she was unapproachable. Sylvia is so opposite of what I thought she'd be like. She was the practical joker of the group and continued to laugh throughout the whole weekend. She has remained my friend even now. She is still a joker and makes me laugh about the silliest things.

My great roommate on that trip was Marnie Mason, a senior from Klamath Falls , Oregon . Marnie is now the women's distance coach at University of Oregon. I haven't talked to her in a long time, but I feel that if I got on the phone to call her, she'd welcome it and we'd immediately talk about that trip. Another gal on the West's team, Chantel Plante, became a teammate of mine at the University of California, Berkeley.

The hosts of the National meet were very gracious. They kept us busy with parties and events the whole weekend. The first night we went out on a harbor cruise dinner. Sylvia and I still talk about how we ate too much on that cruise.

checking out the opposition in pre-internet days

The following day - Friday, we went on the course walk. I checked out all the girls during the walk trying to get some sort of insight on what type of racers each of them were. Back in 1983, we were lucky to read a sentence about a competitor from outside of your immediate region. With the evolution of the Internet and websites such as DyeStat, you are now able to read about all of your competitors every week. The insights are there in black and white. And you are able to see what your competitors look like on websites. I remember walking along that course looking at these other girls and not having a clue about who was who.

On the course walk, there was one man who walked with us and described the course for us. I tried to stay in the front of the pack to hear him, but it wasn't always easy. I found out on that walk that one of the girls had come out to San Diego the week before to get ready for the race. It was Janet Smith from Edison, New Jersey, the eventual winner of the Meet. I guess it helped her but I remember thinking that I thought that that was an extreme thing to do.

Later that day we went to Sea World. Usually I would say that going to Sea World was great, but it wasn't so great that we were walking around all day at an amusement park the day before a race and it was especially not so great when it started to rain and then pour as we walked around the park the day before the race. I could have done without that.

I have to say that even though I was considered a favorite to win Kinney, I didn't feel like I was. I remember feeling so happy to have qualified but then felt a bit overwhelmed when I got to San Diego. I didn't really know how to prepare for the challenge of winning this high caliber meet.

I remember the course. I remember certain parts of the race particularly the first loop � especially the part where it starts to go down hill and the grass turns into dirt, it's the first hill you run into - and I remember The Hill in the second loop. The Hill was a make or break for many of the girls having to run it twice at vital parts of the course and because of the rain the day before, it was somewhat muddy. The race was a blur for me. I ran fifth place in a time of 17:38 and was absolutely thrilled.

back to the future

As I watched the National girls of 2004 warm up and run the race, I couldn't help but wonder how they were handling the pressure of being here as well as the pressure of having to perform at the end of a long season. All of these girls had to run a few high pressure races to make it to San Diego and a few of them had to run over the difficult and muddy course at Nike Team Nationals in Portland the previous week. It's a difficult journey for these young women.

Following the race, I approached a few of the girls that had just run. Some were by themselves and others were in packs made up of regional teammates. For the most part, many were enthusiastic to be at Footlocker. They talked about the hill as well as the down hill portion where some girls were able to capitalize and others weren't. They recall their feelings of nervousness before the race and how it all seemed to hit them during the introductions.

After the race, they were then able to focus in on the number of college coaches that had come to watch them run. For the seniors who were not sure of where they were going to go to school, it was a new thrill but it was also overwhelming. I told them to enjoy the process and listen to their heart when making these difficult decisions.

As I made my way back to my car, I felt thrilled to have come to this meet to see all the young, up and coming American distance runners.