Penguins Run in Frazer, LaBrie Takes Second Place

The Penguins attended the Frazer Invite this last Thursday afternoon. If you’ve never been to a XC (cross country) race, this is the one to hit. It’s located outside of Frazer right next to the river. It is a beautiful area. It was pretty windy for most of the afternoon, but it seemed to die down when the girls started their race. Ava Hanley was planning to stick to her 8:30 split time with this course having three challenging hills. Shelbi LaBrie planned on easing into her first mile after struggling last week in Lewistown with her side aches.

The beginning of the race has a very narrow runway for the girls to start off in so it’s important that they jump out and get good position right away or you’re going to get blocked in by all of the other runners. Shelbi jumped out with the front four runners and leveled out her pace after about 400 meters. Ava stayed in the middle of the pack. The first mile of the race has a nice 400 meter downhill and then they hit a steep incline at the end of the mile. Shelbi came up the hill strong at around 6.35. She came out a lot faster in this race than I expected but seemed to look strong. Ava came up the hill at around 8.35.

As soon as they hit the mile mark, they have another 400-meter downhill stretch that leads into a twisted area down by the river that has some small hills to hit. Shelbi fell off on her second mile by about 10 seconds but nothing to worry about. At this point, she had gone from 4th place up to 2nd. Her second hill was strong and I knew she would hold her position until the end of the race. Tanae Baker was about 100 meters ahead of her through mile three. Ava started out her second mile at a great pace. Unfortunately, she was not feeling well the entire race and ended up struggling through the last two miles. I could tell she was just doing her best to finish the race and she did. The last hill of the race is very long and mentally challenging. All of the runners did a great job of finishing strong. Shelbi ended up in second place with a time of 20.17. Ava ended in 35th place with a time of 29.21. There were 49 runners in Frazer.

We head to the Great Falls XC Invitational this Friday. This will be a very challenging course with a large race atmosphere similar to State. We are excited to see what we can do this week! Good luck to all of the local athletes, we hope you have a great upcoming week!