Looking back to Wild Mountain Runner history, this article by Roberto Perez appeared in the December 1989 WMR Newsletter.

On November 22^nd, the Wild Mountain Runners placed seven runners in the top 30 slots at the Arturo Barrios Reebok Invitational.  Despite the rain and cold morning, Javier Perez led the Wild bunch with an outstanding time of 31:03, which is an average of 5:03 per mile and was good enough for an overall 3^rd place finish.  Carlos Navarro finished 4^th with a time of 31:24 and Roberto “El Chino” Rodriguez finished 7^th with a time of 31:49.

Leading in the second pack of Lions was Master runner Steve Keyes.  He crossed the finish line with a time of 33:22 and was the first Master runner overall.  Hot on Steve’s heels were Pepe “El Brochero” Gomez and Joel Sanchez with times of 33:30 and 33:24, respectively.  German Alonso was right there with Pepe and Joel with an equally impressive time.  German, who has been coaching many of the Wild Mountain Runners at the Cal State L.A. track, accomplished what he had said he would do, which was to break 34:00.

Salvador Arellano completed the course in 34:07.  He said that he was disappointed with his performance, but considering that he was fighting a bad cold, he did remarkably well.  Faustino “El Cuete” Campos proved to Gilbert “4-Mile” Varela that he is a force to be reckoned with by almost ousting Gilbert and finishing in 35:31, which was only a second slower than Gilbert’s time.  I myself ran the race in 36:16, which is the fastest 10K I’ve done in a long time.  To everyone, CONGRATULATIONS!