Rain hindered the girls’ cross country team at at the Concordia Classic Invitational in Portland, Ore. Saturday.

The girls had an average performance with the team finishing 18th out of 24 teams in the 5k run in the elite varsity division.

Runners from Paly were generally disappointed with the conditions during the race.

“The course was super muddy, and it was raining really hard during the race,” said junior co-captain Erin Kiekhaefer. Kiekhaefer’s time was 22:19.7, 124th of 174 runners.

Junior Leigh Dairaghi said that she was not used to running in such muddy conditions.

“I actually had to concentrate on finding footholds,” Dairaghi said. “After the race, we all had a ton of energy and felt that we could have run faster.” Dairaghi finished 111th, with a time of 22:14.1.

Despite the mud, junior co-captain Susan Heinselman is glad that she participated in the race.

“I enjoyed it. It was close to a personal record for me,” Heinselman said. Heinselman was third of Paly’s runners and 100th of all competitors, finishing in 21:34.9.

Grace Cain finished first of Paly runners and 85th overall, with a time of 21:13.1. Senior co-captain Kathleen Higgins finished just after Cain, in 21:15.6.

The girls are scheduled to race again next Tuesday, Oct. 27, at the Palo Alto City Championships at Gunn High School.

Editor’s note: The original article listed Leigh Dairaghi as having finished in 11th place. This was incorrect, and the story has been updated to reflect the change.