{"id":2196,"date":"2022-09-04T21:11:11","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T04:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/?p=2196"},"modified":"2022-10-14T20:57:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-15T03:57:09","slug":"vacaville-lagoon-valley-xc-challenge-september-1-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/?p=2196","title":{"rendered":"Vacaville Lagoon Valley XC Challenge – September 1, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"
Three bleary-eyed Spartaneers rendezvoused in the blue-black darkness of 5:30am to journey to Vacaville for the 3rd Annual Golden Valley Harriers Lagoon Valley XC Challenge.\u00a0 The 8am Master’s start was at first dispiriting, but when they saw a sizzling fireball of sun–that would cook the course to a toasty 107 degrees that afternoon–rise above the Vacaville hills, they were relieved to \u00a0\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
be the first group to toe-the-line<\/div>\n
before the soles of their sneakers<\/div>\n
melted into the dirt.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 When they arrived at the Lagoon Valley course, all heads turned their way, and a whispered murmur could be heard\u00a0 riding on the heat waves:\u00a0 “The Spartans are here.”<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 The three Spartaneers ambled to the registration desk like the Earp brothers and Doc Holiday heading to the O.K. Corral.\u00a0 The crowd of old geezers parted like the Red Sea in respect.\u00a0 “Those are the Spartans!” they whispered to one another as they surreptitiously fumbled with their I-phones to take pictures.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The race set off promptly at 8a with the Spartans following their usual winning game plan:\u00a0 start slow and taper.\u00a0 The 3-mile course was a serpentine, dirt-path two-looper that made-up with hills what it lacked in length.\u00a0 The first hill was brutal and even had a name: Big Momma.\u00a0 If it were any steeper, it could not be conquered with pitons and a rope.\u00a0 The second hill came on lap two and it was of equal incline, but shorter duration.\u00a0 The trail markings were a bit confusing causing both Art and Kurt to make wrong turns.\u00a0 But what would a XC race be without a Spartan getting turned around or lost.\u00a0 Both corrected their errors without turning the course into a 10k, but the heat was wearing them down.<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Spartaneers finished admirably and stumbled to the shade of their small encampment for water and recovery.<\/div>\n
\n–\u00a0 Reported by Kurt Gravenhorst<\/em><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three bleary-eyed Spartaneers rendezvoused in the blue-black darkness of 5:30am to journey to Vacaville for the 3rd Annual Golden Valley Harriers Lagoon Valley XC Challenge.\u00a0 The 8am Master’s start was at first dispiriting, but when they saw a sizzling fireball … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pUWdT-zq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2216,"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions\/2216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gospartans.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}