27th Foot Locker
cross country championships

the national individual championship
for US high school cross country runners.

National Finals
Dec 10, 2005 Balboa Park, San Diego CA

A Connecticut girl showed the California girls her pushup routine and then became a California girl herself

"I am having the time of my life sharing my love of running with these young ladies, and hope they continue to dream big dreams. I still do."

"I have had the most success when running has fit into my life, not when my life has revolved around running. Balance is key in everything you do."

For the past three years I have driven our daughters Anne and Christine, as well as some of their teammates, down to Balboa Park from our home in Newport Beach to watch the Footlocker Cross Country Championships. I did this with the hope that they could learn something for their own local racing as well as be inspired to dream and work to reach the elite level of high school running. I wanted them to see that these athletes were just regular high school kids who put their spikes on the same way as they did, ran strides like they did, and were really tired at the end of their races too.

Well, I guess it worked because Anne and Christine are now members of the Corona del Mar Cross Country team coached by the amazing Bill Sumner, which is now one of the top cross country teams in the United States. Experts are saying CDM could possibly be one of the best teams of all time, breaking both the Woodward Park and Mount SAC team course records this season.

As I watch Annie prepare for the Nike Team Nationals with the hopes of qualifying for Footlocker, so many memories flood back to me from 1980. I was a senior at Greenwich High School coming off of stress fractures my junior year, and very hungry to run fast. I was a big fish in a small Connecticut pond, but had the goal of winning the national championship from the beginning of the season. I always dreamed big.

After winning the Connecticut State Cross Country Championships, then sliding down a snowy hillside on my rear end in Maine to win the TAC/AAU regionals, my high school coach Bill Mongovan encouraged me to run in the new Kinney Cross Country Regionals in Van Cortlandt Park (where I had watched my dad play his New York Rugby Club rugby matches). I was always a frontrunner, and ended up running away from Lynn Strauss of Pennsylvania.

Lynn and I became fast friends and lead the Eastern girls to sunny California with hopes of running fast and getting a sun tan. My roommate at the beautiful Hotel del Coronado was freshman Christa Curtin from New Jersey, future Footlocker Champion and my future teammate at Stanford University. The California girls were very intimidating to us - they had to have an advantage training in summer conditions year round, and beautiful, long legged Vicki Cook was the race favorite.

One memory I have told the CDM girls is of my pre-race push-up routine that I used to do on the starting line of my big races. After slipping at the start, I sprinted to the front and once again ran away from the field to win the Footlocker (Kinney) Cross Country Championships in 17:15 - Lynn was second and Vicki third. Vicki came up to me after the race and told me she thought I was crazy doing push ups right before the race, but now understood why.

After the race, we quickly changed into our bathing suits and hit the beach to tan- we didn't care that it was partly cloudy and 60 degrees - it was balmy to us! I was very disappointed when a Kinney spokesperson came looking for me on the beach and I had to go in to meet with the press.

The Footlocker Cross Country Championships changed my life - I met the great Brooks Johnson after the race who convinced me to go to Stanford, bringing me to the West Coast where I eventually met my husband of 20 years, Ed St. Geme. How I love California!

It brought tears to my eyes as I watched my daughters and their teammates drop down together for twenty at the start of the Clovis Invitational in October. I am having the time of my life sharing my love of running with these young ladies, and hope they continue to dream big dreams. I still do.

Some last words of wisdom from someone who has enjoyed running as a lifelong sport and has won nationals on the high school, college, open, and now masters level: I have had the most success when running has fit into my life, not when my life has revolved around running. Balance is key in everything you do.