TRAINING PAYS OFF

Santiago junior cross country star Blade sizzles with a historic run at Woodward Park

Even if you aren’t necessarily winning a race, how does one of California’s best girls high school cross country runners still know she is making incredible strides?

It’s all about training — physically and mentally — focus, dedication and a determination that when Santiago junior Rylee Blade competes, she’s ready to do her best against the best.

Last Saturday in Fresno, Blade achieved her second major performance goal of the fall, running a personal-best 5,000-meter time of 16 minutes, 45.80 seconds to finish second in the ASICS Clovis Invitational meet’s girls sweepstakes race. Her time shattered not only her previous best in this meet (17:50.7, 13th place, 2022) at the Woodward Park course that also serves as the annual site of the CIF State Championships, but she became the fifth-fastest runner in the course’s history. Her time slots as the 10th fastest performance in course history, according to Prepcaltrack.com. The site also lists the time as the fifth-fastest ever at Woodward Park by a junior and the second-fastest ever at the 44-year-old Clovis Invite.

The only thing preventing Blade from winning was Ventura High and national junior standout Sadie Engelhardt and her 16:39.30, which was good for second all-time at Woodward Park and the fastest ever at Clovis.

Having the challenge of running against Engelhardt is motivation for Blade and great for California girls cross country.

“I broke 17 minutes on that course, and I have Sadie to thank for that because of the pace she pushed. But I think we both pushed each other in that race,” Blade said. “This was an opportunity to just go with it, have a fast time and try to compete to the best of my ability. I know what training I’ve done, times I’ve hit in practice, and I know that if we go off on a fast pace I can stick with her and hold on. I’m pretty happy with the result. My goal was to break 17 on that course and I went under that by quite a bit.”

Santiago coach Rick Etheridge said the race “pretty much went the way we thought it would. We figured Sadie would

PHOTO COURTESY OF RICK ETHERIDGE Santiago’s Rylee Blade, left, runs alongside Ventura’s Sadie Engelhardt during the elite varsity girls race Saturday at the Clovis Invitational.