Jake Riley and Mattie Suver travel to Japan for Chiba Ekiden...

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, here's what's happening:

Bellingham's Jake Riley (left/photo by Paul Merca) and Eastern Washington University alum Mattie (Bridgemon) Suver, will represent Team USA in Friday's Chiba International Ekiden in Japan, featuring teams from Australia, Canada, Finland, Kenya, Korea, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russia, Japan, and several Japanese select squads.

The Chiba Ekiden is a co-ed marathon relay with six legs ranging from 5k to 10k, with an anchor leg of 7.195k to round out the 42.195k race.

Headlining Team USA is Olympic 10000m silver medalist Galen Rupp from Portland, as the University of Oregon alum will run the penultimate leg of 10k.

Riley, who earned his spot on the team when he placed third in the US road 10k race in Minneapolis last month, will be the third runner on the six-person squad, where he'll run the 10k leg.

Suver traveled to Japan as an alternate.

Here's a link to a story on the race, and a separate link listing the teams (in Japanese) entered.

Some post-NCAA cross country stuff we missed:

Here's a link to a story in the Kitsap Sun on Central Kitsap HS product Shane Moskowitz, who finished 53rd in 30:23 as Oklahoma State's fifth man across the line to clinch the Cowboys' national championship title last Saturday.

Moskowitz struggled after the 5k mark with a sideache, but rallied over the last few kilometers.

"It was definitely the best day of my life," he said.  "For sure."

In the same race, it turned out that Gig Harbor's Miles Unterreiner pulled his hamstring as the Stanford senior struggled to a 140th place finish in 31:04, after spending Friday in Seattle interviewing for a possible Rhodes Scholarship, flying to Louisville for the race, and flying back to Seattle immediately after the race via private plane for the second part of the interview.

Unterreiner did not get the Rhodes Scholarship.

"It was a terrific experience,'' said Unterreiner, who turns 23 later this month. "All the other finalists were so incredible and it was such an honor having a chance to meet them this weekend. I also pulled my hamstring in the race and didn't run well, so it was a pretty tough weekend.''

You can read the rest of the story here.

Redmond HS product Devin McMahon finished 123rd in the women's 6k race at the NCAA D1 championship meet, running 20:57, as Cornell finished 13th.

Carey Lyons of Tacoma (photo courtesy Oberlin College)

In the NCAA Division III championships, Carey Lyons of Tacoma's Stadium HS, competing for Oberlin College in Ohio, finished 35th in a time of 21:59 to earn an All-America certificate, helping Oberlin to a ninth place finish in the meet.