Washington senior gears up, wins title by a second

After eight years of trying, Julian-Blake Cowan won his first USA Track & Field National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championship yesterday in Mechanicsville.

Cowan, warpainted with purple eyeliner to match his singlet, a white bandanna knotted around his head, raced down the soft, grey turf in front of Tyler Reed at Pole Green Park.

"I've gotten into this habit where I feel like I'm better when I have all my stuff on," Cowan said, looking at the black bands around his forearms. "It's all lucky now."

A senior at Auburn Riverside High School in Auburn, Wash., Cowan has competed in the Junior Olympic meet since racing in the 10 and under bantam division. He won the young men's division 5K by a second over Reed, finishing in 15 minutes, 56 seconds.

"This is the championship I started out my running with," Cowan said. "I was a soccer player and I got into this. I've been doing it ever since for eight years. This is a great way to end it."

Louisa County senior Thomas Baker, hot off a personal best last weekend, finished third.

"The first mile, I kind of held back and waited to see what everyone else would do. . . . I just let them get a little bit ahead of me," Baker said. "I probably started out 70th or so, probably midway through the pack. And the second mile, I just focused, kept picking people off."

Barbara Strehler, a senior at Trinity Episcopal School, was third in the young women's division.

"I kind of got a rough start," she said. "People went out really fast. We went through the mile in like, 5:40, which really surprised me actually. But I just, I picked someone to stay with and I just stayed behind her."

Elizabeth Brandon won in 18:24, two seconds ahead of Emma Saarel. Strehler turned in an 18:46, but couldn't quite close on the pair in front.

"I had two coaches here and both of them were yelling to go catch them," she said. "So I kind of set that as my goal but I knew that would be hard to do."

Susannah Piersol, a senior at Maggie Walker Governor's School, was 11th. It was her third All-America performance in four trips to the Junior Olympic Championships, but this was by far her shortest trip to the race. The past three have been in Rhode Island, Washington and Kansas.

"It was exciting having it be in Richmond this year," she said.