Jessica Rux is celebrating her 12th birthday today, but she is
already racing with some of the top athletes in the country.
Jessica finished seventh in the USA Track
&
amp; Field Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships in
Albuquerque, N.M. in a field of 278 competitors.
Running in the Midget Girls Division, Jessica recorded a time of
12:19 and helped lead her Los Gatos team to a second-place overall
finish.
Jessica Rux is celebrating her 12th birthday today, but she is already racing with some of the top athletes in the country.
Jessica finished seventh in the USA Track & Field Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships in Albuquerque, N.M. in a field of 278 competitors.
Running in the Midget Girls Division, Jessica recorded a time of 12:19 and helped lead her Los Gatos team to a second-place overall finish.
“I started to train her again after her middle school season was over,” said her father Tom. “We did some speed work interval drills on different courses. She really stepped up the ladder. If I had a couple more weeks to work with her, she might have finished in the top three.”
The winner was 58 seconds ahead of her. The seventh-place finish was the same place she received when she competed in the race two years ago.
Jessica struggled in the cold weather and the high elevation that she wasn’t used to, her dad said.
“She didn’t have anything left when she crossed the line,” Tom said. “She said she was worn out. But that was just the competitor in her.”
Jessica placed sixth in the Pacific Association Championship in Reno behind winner Danzel Bradshaw from Vallejo.
In the Region 14 championships in Fresno, Jessica finished fourth place again behind Bradshaw. But in the Nationals was able to finish 13 places and eight second ahead of Bradshaw after her training program.
The young racer just finished up her basketball season and will be competing in track. Jessica hopes to compete in the USATF track championships this year. But it will be tougher because only three athletes from the region qualify as opposed to the 20 who qualify from cross country.
