SFC senior Mark Trammell has had an amazing journey over the past 3 weeks. Dating back to November 26th at the D5 state meet in Fresno, Tammell helped lead SFC to a second place finish in the state which was the best in school history. Then, on Dec 4th Trammell placed in the top 10 out of the best 170 runners in the West Regional held at Mt. San Antonio College. Trammell said that he “ran the best race of his life’ on a challenging up and down course which ultimately qualified him to advance to Nationals. 

Trammell was seeded 21st going into the December 4th race, which consisted of the best runners from California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Idaho. He survived some early jostling to sit 10th with a half-mile remaining, then passed two runners to make it safely into the top 10, running 15:30.“It was like a wrestling match,” said Trammell of the pushing and shoving. “The first mile was slower than I expected and there were like 30 runners trying to stay with it while conserving energy. The first eight finishers broke the course record, so that tells you how fast it was.”

After a strong finish at the regionals, Trammell earned a bid to join the top 40 runners in the nation to compete in the Eastbay Cross Country National Championships held on December 11th. Trammell had the honors of representing the West Region along with San Diego Section rival Kenan Pala (Parker) and 8 of the top runners from the west region. The event was held at Morley Field in San Diego’s Balboa Park, a course that was familiar to Trammell and Pala. 

Trammell is proud of the season that he and his team had. Even though he did not fare as well as he would have hoped at the National Championships (finishing 36 of 40), he reached his goals of qualifying and earning the opportunity to represent the West. 

Trammell will be running for Wakeforest next Fall, but before he does, he is excited to compete this Spring in several events for SFC Track and Field to finish out his prep career.

Congratulations to Mark and the entire SFC Cross Country program on a great season.

Go Eagles!