Fresh off her third-straight B.C. High School Cross Country Championship victory on Nov. 2, Vancouver Island runner extraordinaire Alexa Dow has claimed a Canadian National Cross Country title as well, and in a distance she's never raced before.
Dow's achievement came on Saturday, Nov. 30 in the U18 girls race — a six-kilometre mostly grass circuit at Fanshawe Golf Course in London, Ont.
Despite never racing a 6km before, her time in a practice 5km the week before was an indication to her that she was in good race shape for the nationals.
Combined with the challenge of an unfamiliar distance, the running conditions were equally difficult, with a windchill of -14 C and blowing snow.
Even so, while representing Team B.C. and the Prairie Inn Harriers, the Cowichan Valley teen raced to a time of 21:44.3, a full 14 seconds ahead of her closest competitor and by the largest margin of any of the day's races. What's more, Dow got off to a lead early and held onto the lead at both the 2 km mark and the 4 km marks en route to the win.
"My plan actually wasn't to go out hard right away, my coach had told me to run my own race," she admitted to Athletics Canada following the race. "We'd been working on finishing fast in training and I think I did that. Going up the hill into the second lap, my coach yelled, 'You have to go at 2 km at the top of the hill!' and I felt good so I pushed it and I'm happy I did that."
In addition to the individual result, Dow's victory helped Team B.C.'s U18 girls to a gold medal in the team standings. The championship title was a step up from last year when she ran to silver in the same division at the nationals in Ottawa.
"I've committed myself to this race since the start of the season; it was a race that I really wanted to win, so I just put my head down and worked really hard towards that and I'm just so excited to see the training pay off," Dow said.
