Looking at La Jolla’s Chiara Dailey, it didn’t take much imagination to consider what the other runners at Saturday’s CIF San Diego Section Cross Country Championships looked like.

Dailey had mud all over her legs and all the way up into her hair.

A driving rainstorm turned a usually challenging 2.96-mile course into a muddy, slippery quagmire. Before the first race even started, officials had moved to the backup “rain’ course that shortened the race to 2.9 miles by eliminating the infamous Upas Street hill.

Dreams of course records were quickly dashed, replaced in most cases by a hope to simply survive the brutal conditions.

The exception was Dailey, who instead took aim at one of the rarest of accomplishments — winning four consecutive section titles.

Dailey went right to the front

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