The Long Beach City College women’s cross country team set new personal records at El Dorado Park’s SoCal Regional Preview on Friday, Sept. 15.
The team raced in a 5k run and finished in 15th place out of 31 with every runner setting new personal records.
LBCC teammates Katlyn Moratoya and Lorena Galaviz both completed the race at a time of approximately 22 minutes, making them the first two runners of LBCC to complete the 5k run.
Following the race, Katlyn Moratoya took a moment to reflect on her own performance and the team’s accomplishments.
“We did good,” Mortoya said. “I just have to pace myself a little bit better in the second round because I slowed down a bit. I just wanted it to be over, but I had to be strong to achieve a good time.”
“I felt good, I felt like I knew exactly where to make moves and to pick it up and to know where to close the gaps, so it felt pretty good overall…not only me, but the whole team felt good going into it and obviously we all PR’d so it just felt pretty good,” said Galaviz.
Coach Karen Vigilant is certain the team will improve with the results of this meet.
“I’m very proud of the girls today, everybody PR’d. We have a little work to do, but all-in-all, I’m happy with the results.” said Karen Vigilant.
One specific detail that Morataya, Galaviz and Vigilant had when talking about the race was staying close together, in Vigilant’s words “as a pack.”
“Once we run closer together as a pack, which means everyone should run about five to ten seconds faster, we should be okay,” said Vigilant.
Director of track & field, Marcus Carroll, also mentioned how great it was to see runners set their PR.
“Two weeks ago was the first race for the ladies and they got a chance to get a baseline for themselves. For them to go out there and improve on their marks and times, that’s all we’re looking forward to, I’m very happy to see that.”
The team looks to build off this performance by improving on Sept. 23 at the The Master’s University Invite at Central Park in Santa Clarita.
