2023 USATF National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships

IN THEIR WORDS

Isaac Lamprecht 

Overall it was a great meet, however after the storms and potentially impending tornadoes the day before I feel like that left a lot of people in the wrong space mentally before racing the next morning. Luckily, I still felt ready to race both mentally and physically the whole morning leading up to the race. While it has been cold the whole morning, it still was dropping before the start of the race and while everyone was on the start line waiting to go, I could sense a lot of tension and energy from all the people around me. However, when the gun went off, it was all adrenaline the first minute and a half getting out quickly before me and one other guy settled into a pace at the front. The two of us kept going back and forth before I was able to establish a gap at the halfway mark that opened to a peak of ~3 seconds. However, at the hill with 1 km to go I took a glance back and saw he had brought the gap back down to just one second. After seeing that, I pushed a little bit further for the last mile to reestablish a just over threes second lead over the finish line. After the race I was talking over the race with the Richmond Track Club, who all also had great races, and we went on a cooldown jog with everyone in good spirits. Fast forward about 10 minutes later, in the award ceremony, and it was an awesome experience to be able to stand at the front of everyone with the gold medal around my neck.

VIRGINIA RESULTS SCOREBOARD