to be a school record holder." Those words probably did not come out of Gabriel Dinnel's mouth upon winning his race by 33 seconds at the Champoeg Invitational, but his actions spoke loud and clear as he finally became XC Panther #1. He raised his arms in victory as he stepped across the finish line, and shortly afterwards he fell to the ground with a grin of contentment on his face and one arm raised above his head. After the previous day's "Lecture on the Lessons of Life" on how butterflies struggle, we almost expected him to say something rather comical like "I've fallen! Don’t Help Me Up!" Not only did he set the school record with his time of 15:24.6, he also smashed the course record by 9 seconds that stood for 31 years.
Well, it is actually less than that. That is how much Hallie Morris missed her Personal Record by - only 0.8 seconds. Normally, most runners might be a bit frustrated that they missed their P.R. by so little, but for Hallie it brought a big smile. Due to a rib cage injury, she has been having a hard time breathing during her races. It is hard to run distance races when you cannot breathe normally. Her time of 23:42.2 nearly matched her time of 23:41.4 at the Nike PDX race from two years ago (as she leap-frogged over her junior year with respect to XC). This time was 36 seconds faster than she ran at Nike PDX this year. Her performance warrants a wrist-band upgrade as well as an opportunity to vie for a District Team position!