Today was much better! We had a really odd schedule for today (a sprinter must have made it). We had the 800 then the 200 meter finals (one heat), and then the 3200. I was signed up for both. I decided to focus mainly on the 3200 because I was seeded higher and I needed to qualify for state and score the team some points. In the 800 I ran just what I wanted to. I ran a 1:28, and a 1:26 which is a 2:54. Lucky for me I was in the second heat of the 800 (there were 3), so I got a little more recovery than the other girls doing both. Pretty weird, but before the 800 I went over to my friend and told her that I hope they have really bad camera problems for the 200 so we get a little bit more recovery, they did, so in between my races I had about 25-30 minutes which felt like enough. Going in to the race I felt great! My plan was to stay with the lead pack as long as I could. Most of us had done both races and were tired, but Emma Saarel didn't and she took control of the race from the beginning, this kind of spread everybody out. However, I guessed this was going to happen anyways when I heard everyone complaining about how tired they were, and I could see it in their faces and warm-up. So I decided just to run my race and stay in the top six so I could qualify. I also had to stay ahead of all of the murray girls, because our team couldn't let murray have anymore points than us. Also during the race it was very hot. Normally I chew gum so my mouth doesn't dry out, but even with gum my mouth dried out, and then having the gum was bad because it stuck to the roof of my mouth and just wasn't good, but these are my splits for the race:
1- 1:29 Felt good, I was in third at this point.
2- 1:32 At this lap two girls from East came up on me and Rachel Perkins from Olympus, I tried to go with them and did for about 250-300 meters and then I started to fade.
3- 1:37 I was back from the group about 5-10 meters and Rachel had fallen from them also, but was still ahead of me
4- 1:42 I tried focusing on staying in contact with Rachel. We stayed about the same distance from eachother for alot of the race, but each lap she got a couple more meters ahead.
5- 1:44 Now I'm focused on who's behind me, I'm told that there is a battle for sixth place and they were coming up on me.
6- 1:46 I was just trying to hold them off, I guess they were only 10 meters behind me and had been since lap 4, but I never heard them once in the race.
7- 1:46 I new I just needed to hold them off for this lap and then I could make it.
8- 1:34 I picked it up, but I heard they were closing in on me, I was told after the race that with 300 meters to go she was starting to get close, but since we had a head-wind on the back stretch she backed off a tiny bit and I put the gap back to 10 meters. Then with 200 meters to go I gave everything I had because I knew she would try to out kick me, and I was able to hold her off. So I took 5th and made state! East Girls won region! It was really exciting and lots of fun. | 