Maybe 8 miles, and I don't know how long the course was. They told us 7km, but on that course with those conditions, I would be surprised if it was even 4 miles. But it was at sea-level, so maybe 4 miles, but I still doubt it.
We warmed up together on the junior USA team. It was a great experience, and those guys are some great athletes(Fred Huxham, John Dressel, Conner Hendrickson, and Eric Hamer) and individuals. I was very nervous going into it, but we heard that many of these teams were going to go out hard, and in a humid 90-degree day with lot of wind coming, it was more important to run smart than fast the first 3 laps. We did just that. The gun went off whistle blew and with the wind at our back, everyone went out super quick, so we just relaxed near the back. When we hit the first U-turn(there were 2 per lap and a lot of other quick turns) and the rest of the field slowed dramtically. We relaxed and started passing people. We crossed the street and went into the dried riverbank/weed area. I went a little hard here because we were running so slow at this part, so I just passed a bunch of individuals. I kept the pace comfortable. The second lap started and a pack had started to form up front, so the USA team worked together and we stayed within kicking range of them. Conner Hendrickson took the lead of our pack when we went into the wind the second time and we just kept going. I got a water at the 2nd U-turn on the second lap. It was water in sealed small bags, so you had to pop them with your teeth or squeeze them hard with your hands.
About at half-way, John and I started to work up to the pack some more, but we didn't work hard enough and just passed the people dropping from the pack and the pack got slowly farther away. More my mistake than John's, I slowed because I thought we were going to early, but we weren't. John led into the wind, and we stayed together just passing people. John was in 3rd, and I passed 4th right before the river area, and then we ran up the sand hill and I got another water. With a lap to go we were right next to each other and I tried to focus on catching the two guys that had survived leading the front. One guy from Canada, another from Brazil. Into the wind I saw the Brazil kid was fading a bit, so I picked it up and worked hard and caught him near the end of the riverbed area. I ran up the hill quick, but the Canadian was too far away. He's a great runner and had a lot on me, so I just tried to make a gap on the Brazilian. I finished 2nd, which I'm happy about, but I feel a little disappointed. I know I shouldn't, but I feel like I could've raced more aggressive and atleast tried to mix it up upfront. Oh well, I still have worlds in a month.
Cool down later. Our team won, everyone finished in the top-9, which was great.
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