For the fourth consecutive year, Cowichan Valley runner Alexa Dow won her age group at the BC Cross Country Championships, finishing first among all 12-year-old girls in the provincial meet at Beaver Lake in Victoria this past Saturday.
The student at Bench Elementary School finished the 3km course in exactly 11 minutes, 16 seconds ahead of the second-place runner in her age group, and just four seconds back of the top 13-year-old girl.
The win on Saturday also clinched Dow the 2019 BC Athletics Lower Mainland Cross Country Series, also the fourth year in a row she has won that title. The Lower Mainland series consists of five races on the Mainland and Vancouver Island, and Dow finished first in the four races she entered.
“In this year’s series, she raced against 12-year-old boys and girls,” Dow’s mom, Andrea, noted. “And in all but one of her races she was first over the line, battling the boys in some exciting finishes.”
A member of the Prairie Inn Harriers racing team, Dow is coached by Gary Barber and also runs the 800m and 1200m during the track and field season, and went undefeated in both races on the Island and Mainland this year. She previously set age-group records in the 1000m and 600m in 2018.
