Kasie Enman ran a 17:45 and narrowly lost the Millennium Running NH XC Festival to Laura Hagley (17:42) on Saturday. But not all was lost. You see, one can argue that Leslie O’Dell was Kasie’s chief competitor that day and Leslie ran a 19:39.

Coming into that USATF-NE XC Grand Prix series opener, Kasie sat atop the All Terrain Runner Series standings with 4 events under her belt and comfortable lead. Leslie was the closest one to her but it would’ve taken a small miracle for Kasie to give up that lead. Not only did Enman extend her lead in the series but she clinched it with one event to go. Since your 5 best scores count, it doesn’t even matter that Kasie can’t make it to the final event (the Seasons 20k road race).

From a Facebook post by Kasie:

“The return to my old high school stomping grounds, Manch-vegas’s Derryfield Park, was successful. I improved my PR on the course by almost 2 minutes (7 seconds shy), fought the good fight, and most importantly had fun. There was a brief moment of regressive nervous anxiety down by the starting line, but I gained strength as the race went on smile emoticon Best surprise of the day was getting to visit with some of my most favorite high school teammates who came out to cheer and introduce the next generation of XC harriers to each other. I have a feeling I might be back to do this again next year…”

Here’s our interview with Kasie:

It’s too bad that Kasie can’t make the road race to be there when the series officially wraps up, but her excuse for missing it says a lot about the caliber of athlete that the series is drawing. Kasie will be competing at the Rut 50k in Montana, which is kind of a big deal.

It’s good to see Kasie earn this honor too, especially since she dominated in the events that she could compete in back in the 2014 edition. Kasie earned a perfect 300 points in the three events she lined up for, but couldn’t participate enough to fulfill the series minimum. Her 300 points still would’ve been enough to score 5th overall. This year she was able to schedule enough in and now she’ll reap the rewards for doing so.

As far as the men go…good Lord, that’ll take some time to sort out. Chris Mahoney had a slight lead over Ethan Nedeau, Scott Leslie and Alex Hall going into the XC race, but now it’s all chaotic. Scott Leslie ran a strong race (4th, 16:10) and just may have run well enough to vault to the top of the standings. Nedeau didn’t compete, but next was Hall (18th, 17:08) followed by Mahoney (19th, 17:12).

Updated standings are still being sorted out so we’ll know soon enough. It’ll be exciting to see who comes out on top at the Seasons 20K!