National champion runs
for bananas

WHAT does a national champion look like?

"You'll see in just a second," someone said.

And we did.

It was true. She's easy to spot, the champ. Chelsea Smith is at the front of the pack right after the gun (which is preceded by the theme from the Clint Eastwood epic "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly;" now that is sports psych music). And by the halfway point, she was all alone. Running, tall and thin, braids flailing. Just running.

An easy stride.

Running, all alone.

This is what a national champion looks like.

"Chelsea and I have a deal," Dan Skousen, a Brigham Young-Hawaii teammate from the school's men's squad, said at yesterday's UH Big Wave Cross Country Invitational. "She takes the front. I take the back. So that way, nobody hates us."

Nobody does. How could they?

She doesn't stick around long enough.

She was gone.

The BYUH senior, the NCAA Division II defending national champion, beat yesterday's runner-up, Hawaii's Dana Buchanan, by 41 seconds.

You know how dominant that is?

Count to 41.

So how did her day go? How was the race?

"There's no bananas at the end," she said.

Yes, that's the best part. She's a character, too. She's funny. How did you do today? There are usually bananas.

Did she want to wait until she heard the final scores before she talked?

"I tend to run around a lot," she said, not even breathing hard. "You'd probably better talk to me now." Before she's gone again, off running on some other adventure, or two.

"I got lost three times," she said, with a self-deprecating laugh. "I was completely off course. Someone who wins the race should be a little more competent."

Well, those things can happen when you're running all by yourself.

Good thing teammate Diana Choi, who finished third, was still within shouting distance.

But Smith made it, 4K around the Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course, against the wind, along the shore, up the hills, then down them. Then, she took an almost instant U-turn back along the home stretch to encourage her BYUH teammates as they piled in one by one.

The NCAA Division II No. 25 Seasiders would need it, with host Hawaii hanging tough. And in the end, it was the Rainbow Wahine who would win, scoring 2, 4, 5, 8, 18 to BYUH's 1, 3, 9, 13, 21. UH also beat fellow Division I foe Houston, which finished third.

But the highlight of the day -- aside from Mt. Sac's pink uniforms, aside from the glee in the director's announcement that the day's soundtrack would be Loverboy (the men made the midway turn to "Working for the Weekend") -- was the national champ.

Cross country is a sport that wears down many, leaves most competitors exhausted and drained.

Smith talked about taking in the beauty of the course.

"I'm out there, running fast," she said. "Wow, it's such a huge blessing."

Even without bananas, it was great.