LJ x-country: Day 2

By Ed Piper

Alex Sellier was sitting on a bench facing the bay. It was 7:17 in the morning.

Seeing his black attire, a reporter approached. "Are you La Jolla cross country?"

"Yes. My name is Alex Sell-yer," the young man introduced himself.

"You mean 's-e-l-l-y-e-r'?" the visitor queried, taking mental notes, lacking notepad and pen.

"No, s-e-l-l-i-e-r."

"Oh, sell-ee-ay, French pronunciation," said the questioner.

"Yes. I was pronouncing it the American way," said the runner, reserved but courteous.

Alex, waiting for his new teammates and fellow La Jolla High students, explained that he was going out for the cross country team for the first time as a senior, though he has been a student at LJHS all the while.

"Yes, I speak French. We lived in France for four years," he said in answer to a question.

"We also lived in China for a year and a half. My dad worked for a telephone company. Now a software company."

Meanwhile, he had spotted other LJ'ers at the upper side of the small park at the end of Fanuel Street in Pacific Beach, so he began to move toward them.

"We had a good run yesterday," said Viking assistant coach Joni LeSage, who had the back end of her car, parked in the adjacent parking lot, up, with a coffee mug visible in the trunk area. LeSage, looking the part, was dressed in running gear and ready to go.

At 7:30 a.m. sharp Tues, Aug. 14, she called to the 10 or so students assembled, "It's 7:30, so you can start exercises."

In a row, they, supplemented by others as they were dropped off by parents, began to do lunges, heel walks, and other stretching motions as they moved in unison halfway down the slightly-sloped grass area, then back to the sidewalk at the top.

A mom came up. Two dads lingered after bringing their kids. A Bird scooter guy had already come and deposited an apparently non-working scooter from a row of seven or so in his packed trunk and driven away.

Adults out to jog came by. Two weathered men, pushing bikes, met at the park and went east on the promenade along the water.

A toilet flushed. "The bathrooms here are better than the ones on the other side," LeSage, a third-year assistant to head coach Mandy Benham, indicated toward the bay.

The grass was still wet from dew as the students warmed up.

Several chatted with friends amiably as they turned, first, this way, then that, doing lunges with each knee sticking out.

Cross country and track are very social sports, as runners catch up on the latest gossip and ask each other what teachers they're going to have this fall, running in a pack.

At 7:44, LeSage, solo, behind the teenagers, headed out toward the five-mile circuit around the west side of the bay. "Some are going to run that, others are going to run further," she said before turning west toward the ocean on the first steps of her own long journey.

In the distance, 20 or 30 Viking cross country runners continued on the promenade walkway, a bicycler, with a flag sticking up from his bike, negotiating his way through the congregated pack.

It was an early and good start, refreshing in its coolness, on a day bound only to get warmer as the sun ascended.