Bay Area Blast Off @ Cal

Congrats to Lora Maes, Shannon Morris, and Tara Hillier who raced in the Bay Area Blast Off at Cal this weekend. Here's the play-by-play from Captain Silver:

In the women's mile, Lora and Shannon finished in 3rd (5:21.47) and 4th (5:25.68), respectively, out of 21 entrants. This was a true mile, by the way, not a 1600m. It was a tough race to pace, as two Farm Teamers took it out fast and hard, leaving a large no-man's-land between themselves and the rest of the field. Lora gamely fronted the chase pack as she moved into 3rd early in the race. Shannon, realizing the pack was dawdling, came on strong in the second 1/2 of the race to finish 4sec behind Lora. Congrats, ladies! (And thank you to Shannon, who led the 3 of us to lunch at a delicious creperie near the track. Yum!)

Around 4:15pm, the air was a bit cooler and breezier as Tara lined up for her first ever 3k steeplechase. Despite having never encountered a steeple barrier in her life, Tara finished 2nd in 11:58.37. Ask her about the water jump sometime at practice if you're up for a bit of humor ;)

See full results and pictures online. (Click on the album "2006-03-18 Bay Area Blast Off" and hit "view slideshow".)