Rahmer finishes sixth at national meet
Eighth-grader caps off extraordinary fall season
Sixth place.
And yet another magical performance from Gianna Rahmer.
New Mexico’s brightest running star on Saturday tested herself against the best in the U.S. on Saturday. Only five cross country runners finished ahead of Rahmer at the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon.
In a field with over 200 runners, the Hoover Middle School eighth-grader, capping off a spectacular fall season, placed sixth overall.
“I’m so, so proud. It was so much fun,” Rahmer said in a phone interview with the Journal. “The mud puddles were so amazing, I loved running through them. It was a blast.”
Rahmer’s time was 17 minutes, 38.9 seconds over 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) at Glendoveer Golf Course. She said her goal was to place in the top 20, and thus exceeded her hopes.
“I would not have believed them (if they told me I’d finish sixth),” she said. “That’s for sure.”
The Class 5A state champion, who represented Eldorado High School during the fall and won every race she competed in, qualified for the Nike nationals by winning the Southwest regional outside Phoenix two weeks ago.
She was the only New Mexican in the field on Saturday. And she performed brilliantly, as usual, finishing only a second and a half out of third place.
“I didn’t have much of a race plan,” Rahmer said. “I wanted to get out fast, have fun and see where the race took me.”
Rahmer moved up in the standings throughout the race. She was 19th early on, but closed strong, going from 14th (through 3K) to 10th (through 4K) to sixth at the end of the 5K course.
The champion Saturday was sophomore Addy Ritzenhein of Niwot, Colorado (slightly northeast of Boulder), who had placed third behind Rahmer and another Coloradoan, Isabel Allori, at the Southwest regional. Ritzenhein’s winning time Saturday was 17:10.4.
Allori finished fourth overall (17:37.4) on Saturday, as that Southwest regional produced four of the top six at nationals. Bethany Michalak of Colorado Springs (17:16.4) was the national runner-up to Ritzenhein on Saturday; she was fourth at the Southwest regional.
“I’m so proud that the Southwest region did so amazing,” Rahmer said. “We destroyed it.”
Rahmer will be taking a little break before she begins track season for Eldorado in a couple of months.
She was a national junior track champion earlier this year, also in Oregon, at the USA National Junior Olympic meet.