RECAP : Brennan breaks through at U SPORTS

Rebecca Brennan had a massive individual performance at the 2019 U SPORTS Cross Country National Championships on Saturday in Kingston, Ont. The fifth-year Gee-Gee, running in her second career national championship race, improved on her time from last year by over 1 minute and thirty seconds and broke the 30-minute mark while racing to a 27^th place finish.

Brennan's time of 29:38.2 was helped by a fast start: her pace at the first split was 3:34 (8:56 over 2.5 km). Her final race pace was 3:42 over the whole 8km course. The performance improvement is even more remarkable because it came on the same course as last year's national championship event where Brennan finished 79^th in the field.

The individual winner of the women's event, Lucia Stafford of the University of Toronto, ran a time of 27:30.3, and the second-place finisher clocked in at 27:44.2. There were nine runners in the 28:00 range and a total of 37 under the 30 minute mark.

Nicholas Roberts represented the Gee-Gees on the men's side of the National Championships, clocking in at 33:51.8, good for 99^th place in the field of 143. Robert's pace over the full 10km course was 3:23.

Full results from the event are available online.