The Allen Community College men’s cross country team is competing in the National Championship this Saturday, November 9, in Fort Dodge, Iowa. For the women, Danae McGee is going to compete as an individual.
The coach of the Red Devils cross country team, Vince DeGrado ,considers the team as a strong one; he believes that this year’s cross country team can do even better than it did last year, when it placed ninth in the nation.
“Our goal is supposed to be top 10, but I think it`s a top 5 program. That is why our goal is top 5 on the men`s side, and for Danae, her goal should be top 5 as an individual,” said Coach DeGrado.
The course at nationals for the Allen runners is going to be 8,000 meters, which is almost five miles. The cross country team has been practicing throughout the semester. DeGrado described how much effort and dedication runners must have in order to gain good results in the National Championship.
“Our practice lasts probably two or three hours, and that’s from the moment you leave your room to the moment you go back to your room. That includes coming in and rolling out on the massage rollers or doing your drills, injury prevention to post workout prevention. Our practices are a lot longer than people might think they are. We work way more that you probably think we do,” DeGrado said.
Throughout the year the runners usually have two to three weeks of transition, or days off. There is not really a season off for runners.
“Track is off season cross country, and cross country is off season track. In other words, there is no really off season if you want be good,” explained DeGrado, who is satisfied with his team and believes that the team is in a good shape. He is sure that being in the top 5 is a realizable goal.
“Our average is still second best in the region,” DeGrado said. “We haven’t hit our top peak performance yet. And that’s my fault. I`ll take the blame for that. It’s something that a lot of coaches don’t look at themselves in the mirror; first they kind of try to look at the athletes. But we are in shape, we are fit. I just don’t feel like we run as well as we are fit. But these last twelve days, since the regionals, I`ve changed things up and I like what I see.”
One of the runners competing in Iowa is 19-year-old sophomore from Tonganoxie, Patrick Rachford. Patrick and the rest of the team have been practicing since finishing track season last spring.
“We`ve had a really hard season. The guys have been running between sixty to eighty miles a week,” Rachford said.
Rachford has been a runner for eight years. This is his third semester at Allen Community College. Last year’s cross country team that included Rachford also went to the National Championship and he is proud to say that, “No other teams finished that high on nationals before.” He believes that this year his team can do even better than that.
“We have a new group of freshmen and they all are talented, and then we returned a few sophomores, so we have a strong team. It`s really strong in depth; there is deep dynamic, running skills so people could run really fast,” said Rachford
Besides big competitions like the Nationals, the cross country team competes during the semester with other colleges too.
“We train all week and then on Friday and Saturday we go to another state or somewhere nearby and we race with other colleges. For the guys, we race 8 kilometers; we can be on golf courses or we can run through hills, through woods,” Rachford said
Running is a big part of his life. It is more than just a sport, “it is a life style” he said.
“Running is definitely my favorite sport. It takes a lot of dedication. To be a runner you focus about running all the time; you cannot focus on anything else,” Rachford said.
The cross country team is like a family for him. Those are the people with whom he spends most of his time.
“It`s really fun to work together. We know each other really well since we run with one another every day. And this is definitely my favorite team. Everybody is really cool. I would not trade my team for anybody else,” said Rachford.
Rachford shared his expectation and hopes about the Iowa competition.
“Our goal is to be top three in the nation. We want to come home with a trophy. And that’s a very possible thing to do. What we want to do is to win the Nationals. That`s going to require everybody to run to the best of their ability, everybody to be on fire at that time. We’ve been training for a long time, so every single workout, every single runner, builds up to one race which is Nationals. We want to do our best,” Rachford said.
- Vince DeGrado, Allen cross country head coach