ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – The College of Saint Benedict track and field and cross country programs were very well represented at the 2016 Ragnar Northwest Passage Relay.
Along with
Robin Balder-Lanoue – the head coach of both programs – who has been a member of the Baba Yaga relay team for 22 years, this year's team featured eight total CSB alumnae from 1991 to 2015. With the help of the former CSB runners, Baba Yaga finished in the top 10 overall and was the first all-women's team to cross the finish line at the 2016 race, which spanned across the Washington coast on July 22-23.
Along with Balder-Lanoue, a 1991 CSB grad, CSB Athletic Hall of Fame member Missy Petersen Trenz and Katie Vanselow Zuehlke – both 1998 grads – ran this year's relay, along with Sarah Omann and Erika Litschke Schramm, who both graduated in 2000. Gina Luke '13 and 2015 graduates
Manon Gammon-Deering and
Jenna O'Donnell also joined the relay in 2016.
The 12-woman team finished the 196-mile relay in 24:03.13, the ninth-best time in the 467-team field. Baba Yaga was also the first all-women's team to cross the finish line, and beat out the next-fastest women's team by more than 22 minutes. This marked the second straight year that Baba Yaga, which competed in the Women's Open Division, was the first women's team to cross the finish line. The group finished the Ragnar Relay in 22:48.33.6 in 2015, and beat out the next-fastest all-women's team by almost two hours.
During the Northwest Passage Relay – which starts near the Canadian border in Blaine, Wash., and heads south through the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges and Puget Sound before ending on Whidbey Island – the 12 runners split up 36 legs of the course. Legs range in distance from three miles to just over 10 miles, and are ranked from easy to very hard.
This marks the second year Baba Yaga has competed in the Ragnar Relay. For the first 20 years of its existence, Baba Yaga ran the Hood to Coast Relay in Oregon. Balder-Lanoue and Baba Yaga won the Hood to Coast Relay outright in 2008.
