After trudging four kilometres through snow, water, ice and rocks Sunday morning on the tricky trail at Otway Nordic Centre and finishing on top of the pack, 15-year-old Aleesha Bautista is ready for anything Mother Nature has in store the rest of the high school cross-country running season.
"At first it was kind of difficult and I just had to push myself," said Bautista, a Grade 10 runner from Correlieu secondary school in Quesnel. "I had a goal and was able to beat it. It feels good (to beat the senior runners)."
Bautista, who finished eighth overall at the season-opening race in Vanderhoof, won a sprint for the finish just ahead of her teammate, Olivia Baptiste, the second-fastest female and top senior girls finisher. Robyn Barwise, a junior runner from PGSS, placed third overall among the girls.
"The uphills and downhills were the toughest part of the race because I was slipping and I actually came close to falling," said Bautista. "I like hills. We practice two days a week and our coach gets us to sprint up hills and we did a bunch of speed work beforehand."
Conditions could have been worse. Overnight rainfall melted much of the snow which fell Saturday. Nechako Valley coach Brian Nemethy said there was 20 centimetres of fresh snow on the ground in Vanderhoof Sunday morning.
Baptiste, a Grade 12 student and aspiring medical doctor, is hoping her cross-country prowess will help her lock up a university scholarship. She runs track and field, specializing in mid-distance events but was forced to become a hurdler Sunday when the slippery course took its toll.
"This one guy fell in front of me on a corner and I just about stepped on him and had to jump over him - it was kind of scary," said the 17-year-old Baptiste.
"Cross-country is a lot of fun because you're not just running circles around a track. The snow was pretty deep so it was kind of hard to run through it and when it got icy you just had to pop off the trail. I'm just going to train hard for zones this week and hope for the best that it doesn't snow."
Bazil Spencer of Correlieu, 14, was the first male runner across the line, followed by Jordan Bax of D.P. Todd and Nathan Beebe of PGSS. All three are junior (Grade 10) athletes.
"There was lots of snow and water and lots of rocks and it was hard to run with spikes because you keep on slipping and falling," said Spencer, who finished second overall in the other two high school races this fall. "You couldn't see the rocks under the snow and the beginning was brutal - it was hard on your feet. It's a good course, just not very good conditions right now."
The third event of the north central zone season drew 37 male and 32 female runners. Quesnel will host the zone championships at West Fraser Timber Park this Saturday, a qualifier for the provincial meet in West Kelowna on Nov. 5. The top 20 zone finishers in junior and senior (male and female) categories will be eligible for the provincial race.
Other category winners Sunday were: Senior boys - Matthew Ebert, Nechako Valley; Juvenile boys, Nolan McLery, Nechako Valley; Juvenile girls, Hannah Vaughan-Ferrell, Quesnel junior secondary; Bantam boys, Nick Veeken, D.P. Todd; Bantam girls, Megan Stand, Quesnel secondary; Elementary boys, Brett Barwise, Heather Park; Elementary girls, Sarah Mushumansky, Nechako Valley; Open women, JeanAnn Berkenpas; Open men, Isaac Goodrich.
