Run, Rams, Run …!

Early Saturday morning, WGHS senior running sensation Mohamed Abdalla will hit the trail at Crystal Springs, for the 2007 CCS Cross-Country Championships. WGx wishes him well in his final race for the record at Crystal Springs …

Perched on a ridge above Interstate 280 on watershed land in the Belmont hills, the Crystal Springs cross-country course is a place of extremes. Sweeping downhills, relentless uphills. Stark, exposed, shadeless. Foggy, windy. Always too hot or too cold.

Mohamed Abdalla will attempt to make history there Saturday. At the Central Coast Section championships, the Willow Glen senior will try to break a course record that has stood for 33 years. He has broken records before, but not like this.

“I’ve run on courses all over the world,” said 1996 Olympian Matt Giusto, a two-time CCS cross-country champ from San Mateo High. “And I’ve yet to find a more challenging test in a cross-country course. Every time you race it, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”