Invited back in December, La Sierra's Steven Norton and Corona's Raul Arcos traveled up to Fresno to compete in the Run for the Dream Indoor Invitational, held at Fresno State's Save Mart Center.  The track is the same 160 yard oval utilized by the defunct Los Angeles Indoor Invite from the 1990's and the early 2000's.  This was the first indoor experience as both are coming off of frustrating Cross Country seasons and are definately looking forward to the upcoming Track & Field season. 

Both traveled as "team mates" and made a weekend of it with a stop by Yosemite and a jaunt through Woodward Park on Sunday.  The event is held to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. is was held on Monday. 

Norton, competing in the 800 meters, ran a very smart and well paced race, just missing 1st place by less than 1/2 second.   Sebastian Sam (4th at the 2007 state meet) was able to hold him off.  Norton will be going for the county record here in 2008 and will be right up there competing for a state title in the same event.

In the 1600, Arcos came into his own in 2007 with three sub-4:19 efforts in the postseason.  Staying in the back of the pack the first half of the race, he made a nice move to move up to 5th place and with each lap, he made up another place.  But, like Norton, he also settled for a close 2nd place (.34 seconds behind Brad Suhr).  Suhr is one of the fastest 1600 meter runners in the nation, so Arcos was pretty satisified with his effort.  He did wish he kicked much earlier and admitted that he a lot left. 

Both represented Riverside County well and gave themselves reason to believe in great things over the next four months!