Well it seems the running gods smote me today for saying that last week's race was so easy. Today's race pretty much hurt start to finish. We raced at 11:30, and by then the sun was beating down on us and the course had heated up to close to 90 degrees. Blazing hot for Spokane. At the start line, I was surprised to see one of my former runners from Kamiakin right next to me. It was really cool to be lining up next to him, and we wished each other good luck. I almost went down in the first 100m -- I got lost in the crowd of 250 runners and didn't notice the hill that rose up right past the start line. Duh. Somehow I stayed on my feet. They only had the mile and 4k marked, and I'm pretty sure neither was accurate. I reached the mile mark in 5:11 in about 80th place and started to work my way up. The nice thing about not having distance markers is it forced me to pay more attention to the people around me. I just focused on rolling up all the guys who had gone out too fast. You'd think by college people would figure out pacing. By what must have been two miles into the race, my legs were aching and I was thinking I might be in trouble. I caught up to one of my teammates right after the 4k mark (12:20, like I said, probably not accurate), and on the long downhill I finally started to feel good. I tried to pull him along with me, but just focused on reaching the next pack ahead of me. The good feeling didn't last long. As I came into where mile 4 should've been, I had a large pack about 30-50m ahead. I was still feeling good and I thought I could catch them. But as I went up the next rise, I felt a tremendous burn in my legs. I stumbled and felt like my legs might go out. As I crested, I tried to put in a little surge to get the momentum back, but I couldn't quite get up to speed. The pack was still coming back, but much more slowly now. My legs continued to buckle, and I started to think that just getting to the finish would be great. I glanced at my watch, figured I had about 3:00 left, and tried to throw in another surge. I caught one more guy, and had to work hard rounding the final turn to keep him behind me. I was so happy to cross the line on my feet and without losing a spot. Considering how hard this week has been, I'm really happy with how the race went. Despite being so tired, I still had a kick and was nearly able to run as fast as the Sundodger course. This course is pretty flat, but the grass is deep and there are all kinds of little rises and twists and turns that prevent you from getting into a good rhythm. Should be a great course for nationals. | 