The Tour De Mountaineer – Day 5 
 Lambs Creek Recreation Area (LCRA) and a Marathon Day

When I arrived at Mansfield, there hadn't been a home cross country years and with good reason. The course was danger straight out of the 70's, like disco, bell bottoms and leisure suit danger. The athletic director then was the legend Roger Maisner, now retired. Roger had a vision to have a functioning cross country and track and field program and he knew we had to have a home course to do that. I didn't disagree and started to search the area. It took a while but riding along route 15 on cross country and track trips I kept looking over the incredible fields and thinking what a great place to run.  Cross Country coaches always think things like that.

Well, in 2003 artifacts from the Seneca's were found and the farming had to change to no till. That meant there was a need for a riparian buffer.  A space of 15 feet of grass all around the fields was needed – the ideal place to run cross country! It was the Army Corp of Engineers Mark Simonis whose daughters ran cross country at Wellsboro High School that also recognized the resource and we connected.  Thus was born the now nearly 20 year project.

That first year the team moved rocks, picked up flood debris and we pulled plants and then we had Lisowski's Excavating come in and roll it with 10 tons of hardened steel. We started in 2004 with workouts and by 2005 we had our first home dual meet.  From there the facility just grew. In 2009 we hosted the Atlantic Regional and from then on held high school meets and college meets. From 2014 to 2020 we hosted the Dairy Dash – a 5k to honor Shawn Seely a local farm who died in a tragic accident. That event brought joy to so many each year. In 2014 we hosted the ECAC and PSAC Championships. This year we will once again host the both the Atlantic Regional and PSAC Championships.  It is the first time an institution has ever hosted both.

 LCRA is now our field of dreams and it is arguably one of the best sports facility at Mansfield; capable of hosting multiple events, maybe even a National someday. It has been the home to scores of runners from Mansfield, scores more to come.

 Today though was all about the runners of the present.  It was their first time down at "the course" as we say and their task was run at their Marathon pace over grass. A quite simple challenge really. Run on a course with no markings and be as close as possible to you goal pace. Just the runner, the grass the trees, oh and maybe a bear. None today though. Christian Tanner won his 2^nd stage in a row taking back the Maillot Jaune. The battle between him and Dereck Simpson is just a single point apart. Baily Morgan who may be having the best camp of her 4 year career won the stage again and stayed in yellow but Angelina Colon and Anna Duncan are in hot pursuit with only a 3 point spread between them.

 The hill climbing segment was the sprint up "picnic hill" a 180m 9 % climb that task even walkers. It was a hard charging Daniels who won the climb in a bit of surprise.  The ever explosive Tanner took the win and brought home a Strava Crown as well.  The day finished with leg strength testing with points for the blue Jersey.  This time it was Duncan for the win joined by Tanner again.

At the end of day 4 Tanner and Morgan are in Yellow. Simpson and Lytle in White. Green for the sprinters is Calderon and Duncan with Neal and Daniels in Gray for the climb. All Points for conditioning are in with Wotten and Colon in control.