Freshman Elise Cranny lived up to the hype Saturday after taking down a strong field at the Washington Invite to win her first individual title in the Cardinal uniform and lead her team to a second-place overall finish. The reigning U.S. junior national cross country champion made a hard move with 1,000 meters to go to edge out runner-up Melanie Townsend of Northern Arizona by seven seconds with a time of 20:11.

"I was really excited for my first college race," Cranny said. "Wearing a Stanford uniform, putting it on this morning was really exciting."

We knew Cranny had wheels after watching her run 4:10 at Payton Jordan and finish fourth at World Juniors, but the win this weekend proved that she is a serious threat in the longer distances as well.



Other FloRunner nominees:

Lincoln's pick: Tyler Pennel
The former Western State standout won his marathon debut at the USA Marathon Championships Sunday, and ran 2:13:32 to best second place finisher Jared Ward by 28 seconds. Just like Aaron Braun (Adams State) before him, Pennel continues to prove that D2 runners are not second-class citizens.

Gordon's pick: Carmen Graves
My FloRunner of the Week goes to D3's own Carmen Graves who not only beat the 5K NCAA Champ Marielle Hall at Paul Short, she also has run 9:47 in the steeple making the USA finals. She was a D3 800m All-American. AND she can triple and long jump. So Carmen is My FloRunnerSteeplerSprinterJumper of the Week. 

Meg's pick: Grant Fisher
Fisher won Portage Invite this weekend in a blazing 14:43. It's the all-time second fastest time on the course, only to Dathan Ritzenhein. The time prompted Ritz to tweet to Fisher, which prompted Ammar Moussa of CU to inquire which college Ritz thinks Fisher should attend. Check back for a breaking news story on the decision. <3

Joe’s pick: Edna Kiplagat 
'Tis the season for marathon tune-up races and by all indication, the two-time world champion from Kenya is ready to roll. Kiplagat dominated the Great Scottish Run in Glasgow on Sunday, winning by a whopping 56 seconds over Caroline Kilel in a course-record 1:07:57. Look out New York!

James' pick: Reza Baluchi
This guy might be my FloRunner of the year. He was rescued off the coast of Bermuda after attempting to run in a hamster-wheel styled bubble starting from the coast of Florida. The nearly 1000-mile journey caused severe fatigue for Baluchi, obviously. But after running around the perimeter of the US, we can be certain that this guy is indeed awesome, and crazy.