Diego to Diego

Hey everyone, my name is Diego Estrada, and I am part of the NAU cross country team. This weekend we headed down to southern California for our “official” season opener, I was asked to write about my experience and I was excited to do so. So I’ll start with the bus drive to San Diego….

My alarm went off around 6 a.m., and for a second I thought about skipping the trip to sleep in, but my competitive self, and the thought of an unhappy Coach Heins, made me get out of bed and get on my way. Once I got to the bus I went straight to the back for a two hour nap. Then I woke up only to become utterly irritated with the DVD my teammate Nell Rojas decided to watch, Ellen DeGeneres stand up… really Nell? Ellen is NOT funny! The entire team, mostly the guys hated it. Luckily the angry crowd was persuasive enough to get her to change it. After that horrible setback the drive became a pleasant one. We made a quick stop in Yuma to eat, and then were on our way to Balboa Park to jog the course.

San Diego was a bit warm and humid for my liking, but it didn’t compare to the humidity in Arkansas last June. It felt good to be back in California, and to be bonding with my teammates. The jog was a quick one. I spent most of it with Coach Heins talking about the race plan. He wanted to work on a different strategy team wise, and on my weakness. I have never been a fan of running in a pack, or even worse, having people pushing and shoving me. I was a little concerned, but I was aware that our team is so good that there was no need for me to do anything special; they could take care of the win on their own with out my assistance. That made it a lot easier to know that if it became a mental challenge for me, we would still come out on top. Basically we would go out there and purposely put our selves out of the picture for about a half of the race and then work our way to the front.

After we were done, we headed to our hotel. We headed to our rooms and prepared our selves for a magnificent feast courtesy of Coach Heins. I was a little concerned about rooming with Jordan Chipangama, with him being the new guy and all, but I quickly realized he was a chill guy. We all had a good time talking and relaxing at dinner. For a second I forgot that we were in town for business, I was having such a good time with everyone that it felt more like a vacation.

Game time! We made our way to Balboa Park bright and early. I could feel the excitement in the air. The Lumberjacks were ready to chop some “trees” haha…. And boy did they chop! I was finishing up my strides as I saw our women’s team perfectly execute the game plan and win their second meet in a row. Miss Veronica Pohl did what she does best, and won. She was closely fallowed be a flock of teammatesw. Eliza Gawryluk also ran really good placing third… I could hear some of the NAU fans excited on the side lines saying “that polish girl is good.” All of the girls did work, as Haley Lawrence stood out, the middle distance star simple ran amazing! I think she should definitely run a 5k this spring.

Shortly after they where finishing up, my classy team mate Darius Terry and I, rocking the half tights, made our way to the starting line. We all made our way there, and as the TEAM that we are, we clapped it in and supported each other. I wanted to feel as uncomfortable as I could so I made my way to the back center of our starting box. I couldn’t help but laugh a little as Andrew Belus joked “yeah box him up, don’t let him out.

The gun went off and for the first time of my life I did something I never do, I slammed on the breaks and worked my way to the back of the pack. I must have been our 14^th guy or so at the mile marker, I slowly snaked my way to the middle front and began giving some support to MD (middle distance crew), I wanted to help out Darius as much as I could, after all I said I would. Finally, by the two mile marker, I made my presence felt at the front. I wasn’t intending on leading at all, till the “Rube” (Tim Freriks) took the lead. I knew he wanted to run fast, and was not about to allow him to do the work for the upperclassmen, so I took the lead and opened up a gap along with my teammates. When the damage was done, I simply sat back and enjoyed the show. Boy was it exciting to see the guys “jack it up!” Jason took over the pacing duties and from there on it was all him and Jordan. Jordan ran like a champ and in a humble manner stole the show. He was followed by, Ahmed, Jason and me. If it wasn’t for a brave USF runner we could have perfect scored the meet, but a 16 point win is not bad at all. Our superman/MD Darius Terry rounded out the top five with his impressive sixth place finish. It’s too bad it only takes five to score because we had plenty of ammo, as we placed everyone in the top 20. It was a good day! I was happy to see my parents, and little sister. I met my good friend Scott Blair’s parents; they were really nice, I’m sure they liked me.

Well that was that, shortly after we received our awards we headed to the beach for some down time, and then were back on the road to beautiful Flagstaff.

It was a wonderful experience to have been part of the trip with my teammates. Thanks to everybody for making it a fun and enjoyable trip. Good job and of course thanks for giving me the opportunity to write about my experience… hope everyone enjoyed reading about it.