This past Saturday, Sunnybrook park had a few more joggers grace its field than usual, as U of T hosted the OUA Cross Country championships. A night of light rain, which had left the field quite soft, made for brisk conditions as over 150 runners from across Ontario traded their jeans and sweaters for bibs and shorts.

Bringing the field to life were hundreds of families and friends gathered in support of the runners. Some ran from checkpoint to checkpoint to urge the runners on, and others painted their faces with school letters. A posse from Guelph dressed in cow prints and rang cow bells to show their spirit.

The championships opened with the women’s 5 km race, where the seventh ranked Blues were trying to defend their OUA championship from a year ago. Though this year’s Blues lost key runners from last year’s squad, including All-Canadians Tambra Dunn, Jackie Sandoz and Elizabeth Ben-Ishai, the team remained competitive all-season.

But despite a valiant effort from U of T, the women’s race belonged to Queen’s. The Golden Gaels finished nine points ahead of second place Western on the strength of Beth Wightman’s 17:08 first place finishing time. The Blues would have to settle for fourth place behind Guelph. Sandy Wells was the top Blue, finishing fifth overall at a time of 18:13.

In the men’s 10 km race, Windsor’s Ryan McKenzie lived up to last year’s Canadian Interuniversity Sport athlete of the year title. McKenzie, who at times appeared to challenge the mountain bikers pacing the race, blew away the competition with an amazing 31:04 time. More impressively, Windsor also finished second, third, fourth and eighth, for a total of 18 points to break the previous record for lowest amount of points. The previous record of 19 points was set by Guelph in 2000. Guelph, Waterloo, Queen’s and Western rounded out the top five.

The U of T men finished strong in sixth position. With a mix of young and old runners, the Blues were led by a pair of second-year students. Sprinting across the finish line in 17th was Trevor Caldwell and in 29th, Chris Van Beurden. And not far behind was first-year student Gabriel Jareduin in 31st place, rounding out a promising squad of younger runners hoping to improve for next year.