Scotland XC trip worth the effort for preps
By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor
They may be friendly rivals at BorderClash, but the three guys from Spokane, Wash. and Matthew Maton of Bend, Ore. reveled in being teammates together last weekend at the Bupa Great Edinburgh XC Race in Scotland.
The trio from Washington – senior Kai Wilmot and junior Tanner Anderson from North Central, and junior John Dressel – experienced almost every aspect of the trip together. Maton was on separate flights to Great Britain but fell in with the Northwest group when they linked up in London.
"We were in the London airport and all of a sudden I turned around and saw this tall guy and it was like, 'Hey, what's up Matthew?'" Anderson said.
Estevan De La Rosa of Arcadia, Calif. arrived later than the rest, with his coach Jim O'Brien, so the amount of time they spent with him was limited. And the sixth runner, Noah Gade from Oklahoma State, preferred to hang out with the older athletes.
"Us Northwest guys hung out a lot," Maton said. "Mostly it was just walking around the town."
They began to realize on the second day that the menu at the hotel was exactly the same day after day for lunch and dinner: chicken and salmon. So it became a running joke and a group effort to find something else.
One evening they staked out an Edinburgh pub and found a cheeseburger on the menu, Maton said.
"They brought one out and it was weird," Maton said of the Scottish cheeseburger. "It tasted really funny. If I had it to do over again I would have ordered something else."
The group saw ancient castles and roadways in the 900-year-old city.
The sight-seeing was nice but it was also a business trip.
The U.S. junior men competed well, with Maton, Anderson, Wilmot and De La Rosa finished 3-4-6-7 in the race (which scored the top four) and finished second to Europe (1-2-5-9). Gade was 10th, Dressel 12th.
On the webcast, there was a somewhat chaotic scene at the finish. It appeared that the winner, Alexis Miellet of France ran his teammate, Yemaneberhan Crippa of Italy, off the course about 15 yards from the finish line. Or maybe it was a wrong turn. But Crippa managed to correct his mistake and jog over the finish line two seconds before the on-rushing Maton and Anderson could pick him off.
Anderson said he believed that Miellet and Crippa may not have understood the explanation, given in English, not to follow the camera truck as it veered through a hole in the fencing and off the course prior to the finish line.
"I don't think (the first two runners) understood," Anderson said. "At first, we thought one kid had pushed the other one through but I don't think that was the case."
The race, they said, was fun.
"I really liked the race," Anderson said. "I'm used to big races where you have to run 65 (for the first quarter) to stay out of trouble. But in this race we sprinted for 50-100 meters and then settled into race pace. The course was side. There was only one (bad) part, after you cross the road everything is on a side hill. And the second creek was a big jump. If you didn't get over it, the water was four feet deep."
Anna Maxwell of San Lorenzo Valley, Calif. was the only prep athlete in the junior women's race. She was 11th out of 18 competitors, third for the U.S.
The experience and the chance to get feet wet on an international stage was the main point for the junior team members.
"Just wearing that singlet was so cool," Anderson said. "I put it on in the hotel room so I could stand in front of the mirror and look at it. 'This is so cool.' Never did I think I'd race for the USA."
The boys from the Northwest will long remember having breakfast on Saturday morning with Garrett Heath, the top U.S. runner in the 4-kilometer race. Also in the field were Olympic legends Kenenisa Bekele and Asbel Kiprop.
"We were talking with (Heath) and said it must be great to be in a race with Kiprop and Bekele," Anderson said. "He said 'You know what would be even better? To beat those guys.'"
Later, Heath went out to Holyrood Park and did just that bringing home the first of two American victories, along with Chris Derrick's in the men's 8-kilometer event.
The trip home was wrought with challenges. The trio from Spokane missed its connection upon returning to Seattle and got re-booked three times before finding a flight back home. Maton had a delay, and an extra night in Los Angeles, on the way home.
But it was all worth it.
"I think what I learned is that there is always going to be somebody you don't know about that's going to be really fast," Maton said.
In that way, the glimpse at an international event opened the horizon – and the competition pool – beyond U.S. borders.
The next opportunity might come in July, when the IAAF World Juniors Track and Field Championships come to Eugene, Ore.
