Raleigh Relay Results

April 7, 2001

Raleigh, NC (www.hurricanesports.com) — The Raleigh Relays were held on the campus of NC State this past weekend and teams from all over the country were in attendance. The Raleigh Relays is quickly becoming one of the premier distance meets on the east coast, and Jeff Gaulrapp, Shannon Sarabyn and myself were gearing up for a raucous battle.

We met Coach Ward early Friday morning and flew into Raleigh via Atlanta. We got there by about 1pm and went straight to a diner to have some lunch. Women’s distance star Shannon Sarabyn was set to race that evening in the seeded section of the 5,000 meters.

We headed out to the meet where I met up with an old high school teammate of mine, Jack Lovejoy, currently attending Yale. As is becoming customary, we reminisced about days of yore…the powerful teams of Seattle Prep Cross-Country, etc…

Lovejoy was set to run the 5,000-meter that evening in the unseeded section. Gaulrapp and I warmed up with Lovejoy for a while and got in an easy 5 miles. We just wanted to keep our legs fresh and ready for the steeplechase the next day.

We got back just in time to see the women’s 5,000 meters start. Sarabyn cruised for the first 3,000 meters (in fact going through near her personal best time for that distance). Near the end, Sarabyn just seemed to run out of petrol (as the Brits would say), and wound up running a 17:19.04, good enough for 24th overall.

The next day, Gaulrapp and I were preparing for a fast steeplechase. We were hoping to run under nine minutes since the competition was the best we’d see until the Big East Championships.

The race went out pretty fast. Gaulrapp and I got sucked along and ended up being a little quick for our first half-mile. South Florida’s Jan Erik Saco made a break from the pack, later Gaulrapp would tell me he thought we should have gone with him. Saco’s break from the pack carried him to victory.

For some odd reason, I was content to try and run for 2nd place. I sat in the pack and prepared to kick it in at the right time. With 450 meters to go I realized I could maintain a strong kick to the finish and moved up into 2nd place. I cut through the last water barrier, amidst the hundreds of fans rooting for a tired runner to fall, and sprinted in to the finish.

I held on for 2nd, and in my half-zombie state, I managed to see Gaulrapp come across the line shortly after.

We cooled down and coach told us our times. 9:08.62 for me, and 9:15.97 for Gaulrapp. Coach had seemed a bit annoyed with our race strategy: we had gone out to fast and were then unable to hold the sub-9 pace. But I had still managed to PR by 2 seconds, which was a new school record, so that seemed to appease coach for the time being.

The Raleigh Relays was a fun meet overall. It was kind of weird only having three athletes at the meet, but the atmosphere had a real big time feel to it. Gaulrapp and I are resting next week, and we’ll be back racing at our home meet on April 14th. The rest of the Hurricanes will be in action this weekend at Florida Memorial trying to qualify a few more guys to the Big East Championships on May 4-6.