Nanooks will send five to XC running state championships

After an exciting Big West Regional Meet held in Nome on Saturday, September 26 that featured competitors from Kotzebue, Utqiagvik, Bethel and Nome, the Nanooks are sending five runners to the State Championships this coming Saturday at Bartlett High School in Anchorage. Girls varsity started at 11 a.m., boys varsity started at 11:45 a.m. and an open race was held at 12:15 p.m
In a nail-biting, down-to-the-wire finish, Nome-Beltz senior Granite Peacock took second place in the boys varsity race, only a fraction of a second behind Jackson Iverson of Bethel. Cole Iverson of Bethel finished third. Other Nanooks finishing in the top eight were Gabe Tran in fourth and Rowan Moore in fifth. They will join Peacock at Bartlett. 
Noel Pardee cinched a fourth-place finish and Audrey Bruner-Alvanna finished sixth in the girls varsity race, securing their spots at state. Maya Iverson of Bethel won, Adele Thomas from Barrow placed second, and Codi Hancock of Bethel was third. 
Bethel Regional High School took home both first place team awards for the boys and girls. The Nome boys took second. There was no second-place girls team – no one else fielded enough athletes. Nome-Beltz won the award for highest GPA. The top eight runners in each race qualify for state. The top boys and girls teams are able to take a full team to state.
The course was the same as September 5’s Musk-Ox Classic – a five kilometer race that started by the NACTEC house, headed west, and then looped around towards a punishing climb up to Glacier Creek Road, followed by a descent that took racers back towards the teacher apartment building and then a chute that led to a finish near the rear of the gymnasium. 
Saturday’s weather was chilly and windy. Clouds surrounded Nome, but weak sunlight peaked through onto the course. Gusts of wind didn’t make the race easy on the runners. According to some athletes, the wind gusts posed a heavy challenge.
Peacock spent much of the race drafting off of Bethel athletes Jackson and Cole Iverson. “I was just kind of staying behind them, kind of let the wind brush off of them, so I could not use as much energy,” he said. “But it was still pretty bad.”
The climb up to Glacier Creek Road is a brutal one – a switchback leads the course out of the brush, and then racers climb over a ditch line. From there, it’s straight up scree and gravel, a near scramble. At the top of the scree, there’s another berm, where the trail seems to go almost straight up for about three feet, before a short flat stretch turn to the right and then a sloping climb through more brush to the road. From there, it’s nearly all flat and downhill to the finish line.
For Pardee, the climb was all a mental game. “Not only in like a physical sense, but in a mental capacity wise, just knowing, ‘Hey, you can do this,’” she said. “Really, just talking yourself, ‘You’ve got this. You’re gonna make it.’”
The last time Peacock raced this course, he cited the hill as a major challenge. This time was no different, and his focus was on not giving up, especially on the second berm near the top of the climb. “It’s so hard, on your legs and just your lungs,” he said. “Mentally, it’s super hard to get up there. Just keep on running the same pace the whole time.” 
Bruner-Alvanna said the hill is the crux of the race. At the beginning, she said her strategy was to start strong with a pace she could maintain, knowing she’d be tired after the climb. “And then you get to the hill, you push what you can,” she said. “Then you’re just cruising for the rest of it, and then you just finish strong.”

Nanook Head Coach Tobin Hobbs gave each athlete a competitor to stick close to during the race. “I tried to pace with this girl from Kotzebue,” said Bruner-Alvanna. “I was just staying with her most of the time, and then she ended up beating me.” 
Hobbs said his number one priority with the athletes was making sure everyone came to the hill with enough energy. “The biggest thing for this race was making sure that they paced themselves kind of throughout the race, and they didn’t overdo it in the first mile,” he said. “Because then you’re gassed for the hill, and then as soon as you get to the top of the hill, you’re just dead for mile three.”
Next week’s state championship course at Bartlett is a different style of race – a two-lap winding course through trees with lots of medium rolling hills, and a much bigger field of competitors. Hobbs said the other difference is the cheering – at Nome’s course, there are moments when it’s just the athletes out there. At state, it’s a different game. “The trails are lined with people, so you don’t really have time to think about, ‘Oh, I’m hurting really bad,’” he said.
“It’ll probably be a much faster race. It always is, because the amount of people that are racing, and then you throw your kids in there, and then they’re getting drug along to faster times,” Hobbs added.
One athlete who didn’t make state this year but had some incredible progress over the season was Karver Otton. At the beginning of the year, his five-kilometer time was in the low thirties. On Saturday, it was 21:20. “He just got hungry and he wanted more and so I gave him more and I put him in with the faster boys,” said Hobbs. “He just progressed insanely fast over the last month.” 
The whole team had a good season with great progress in times and lots of athletes setting personal records (PRs). “I couldn’t have asked for a better season than what we had,” said Hobbs. “They all PR’d on this course because they raced on this course at our home meet, and their times were way faster this time around,” he said. “They crushed it.”
The state championships will take place Saturday, October 3 at Bartlett High School in Anchorage, Alaska. 

Results:
Girls Varsity
1.Maya Iverson, Bethel 22:30; 2. Adele Thomas, Barrow 23:46; 3. Codi Hancock, Bethel 24:36; 4. Noel Pardee, Nome 25:17; 5. Hazel Nanouk, Kotzebue 25:38; 6. Audrey Bruner-Alvanna, Nome 25:45; 7. Flossie Olemaun, Barrow 25:58; 8. Claire Dyment, Bethel 26:19; 9. Isabelle Kerr, Bethel 26:39; 10. Kayleigh Bell, Bethel 26:44; 11. Piper Lewis, Nome 26:46; 12. Nevaeh White, Nome 26:47; 13. Norah Madison, Kotzebue 28:25; 14. Tiffany Nanouk, Kotzebue 29:17; 15. Rebekah Carmichael, Bethel 29:23; 16. Jessa Kaleak, Barrow DND

Boys Varsity
1. Jackson Iverson, Bethel 17:11; 2. Granite Peacock, Nome 17:12; 3.Cole Iverson, Bethel 17:20; 4. Gabe Tran, Nome 18:53; 5. Rowan Moore, Nome 18:54; 6. Carver Hancock, Bethel 18:57; 7. Ethan Wheeler, Bethel 19:12; 8. Elijah Floss, Bethel 19:21; 9. Joshua Barron, Kotzebue 19:33; 10. Landyn Grady, Bethel 20:03; 11. Steven Butte, Bethel 20:06; 12. Joshua Funk, Kotzebue 20:08; 13. Tyler Ellanna, Nome 20:20; 14. Dade Ellanna, Nome 20:41; 15. Carson Thomas, Nome 21:00; 16. Karver Otton, Nome 21:20; 17. Rowen Davis, Kotzebue 22:53; 18. David McConnell, Kotzebue 23:18; 19. Sean Swanson, Kotzebue 24:10; 20. Alex Walker, Kotzebue 27:10; 21. Richard Gallahorn, Kotzebue 28:46