XC Completes Season's First Half at CSUB
9/24/2009 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
MALIBU, Calif. - Growing up in the rural New England town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, the starting point for the Boston Marathon, it's fitting that Pepperdine sophomore Lauren Lodge (Hopkinton HS) has become a talented distance runner in her own right.
Lodge hails from a family of runners and often competed in the Boston mini-marathon (one-mile run) as a youngster while her mom and sister have gone on to conquer 26.2 mile course that finishes near the John Hancock Tower in Copley Square. And while Lodge desperately wants the Boston Marathon to be her first real long-distance experience, she's fully aware that's close to impossible since she first has to qualify.
Lodge's training for the Boston Marathon and as a cross country runner began in earnest as a seventh grader who was a year too young to start field hockey. However, she loved her new-found sport right from the start and continued with it all through high school, where she was an MVP, All-Star and four-time Tri-Valley League champion with the Hopkinton Hillers.
When it came time to choose a college Lodge had her mind set on California all along and applied to all the bigger, more-well known schools. But it was a questionnaire from a small campus in Malibu that really grabbed her attention.
"I was always interested in going to school in California and one day a questionnaire from Pepperdine arrived in the mail. I saw that it was in Malibu, and I fell in love with the campus, team and the coaches after making my first visit," Lodge said.
Since making that 3,000-mile trip last summer to the Pacific Coast, Lodge has consistently been one of the Waves' top finishers at each and every meet she's competed. Only twice has she finished lower than second for Pepperdine, and her 17th-place performance at last season's West Coast Conference Championships earned her a spot on this year's Preseason All-Conference Team.
One of Lodge's many attractions to Pepperdine was that she'd be right in the middle of things - she wouldn't be straggling along at the back of the back, nor would she be miles ahead of everyone else. Instead, all of her teammates would be pushing one another in an attempt to make a significant impact on the program's future success.
Junior Chelsea Wishard (Lawai, Hawai'i/Kauai HS) has served as Lodge's primary competition over the past year, finishing ahead of her younger teammate at all nine meets in which they've both raced. In fact, Wishard has led Pepperdine to the finish line at every meet since the start of the 2008 campaign.
Lodge keeps hoping to break Wishard's streak of No. 1 showings, but stresses that theirs is a friendly rivalry with no jealousy involved.
"She always gets me at the end so I wish I had her focus," Lodge said. "We encourage one another during races and lately we've been working on pack running together. She's helping me pace myself better in workouts and I've been getting her to go a little faster."
Next up for Lodge and Wishard is this Saturday's Roadrunner Invitational, which takes place on the campus of Cal State Bakersfield. The men's 8K race begins at 9 a.m. followed by the women's 5K at 10 a.m.
The CSBU course runs flat and fast over terrains of grass, dirt, pavement and blacktop. The Waves have run on similar campus courses the previous two weeks at UC Irvine and Riverside.
The Bakersfield meet serves as the unofficial halfway point of the cross country season and the Waves will have the next three weeks off from competition before returning to action at Santa Clara on Oct. 17.
