I’ll write more later. Not the race I wanted. I was hoping to run a qualifying time for nationals, but it just wasn’t my day.
So, here it goes. Our race was pretty late, 6:40, so we had a lot of time to wait. Coach was pretty excited about 5 of us going for national qualifying times, Rory, McMillan, Me, Clayson, and Danny. I put a lot of pressure on myself going into this race, and I think this pressure was very unnecessary. We did a shakeout around 12, then went and got lunch. I warmed up about an hour before my race. I watched Danny, Rory, and Clayson's race before and they went pretty quick(both Rory and Danny ran 13:41 and broke Jared's school record, so that was super cool to see. Clayson ran with a lot of grit and kept the pace fast when the pacers slowed down). I did strides and got to the line. I was right by Mcmillan, and Brayden was near the outside.
Gun went off, and I felt pretty good. I got out well, just tried to get in a good position. I wasn't very relaxed, but just felt like racing. I was in between 7th and 10th I think. I slowly moved up. The pacer took us through a little slow, but I just tried to not think about it, because that stress can be detrimental to me(too many races where I stressed about time in high school). After a while, I moved up and the race had Clayton pacing us. I went on the outside of Peter Lomong as McMillan moved up on the inside and were in first and second (not counting Clayton who was pacing us so we could get a qualifying time). Well, things were good here, but the pace just felt like it kept getting faster. I'm not sure what it was, but I started hurting. Like, a lot. I just didn't see a chance for me to qualify, and I lost the mental game. One by one people started passing me. I gave a less than perfect effort to stay in it, but I let the pain win over. With 400m to go, I saw I needed to run 63 to break 14 minutes. Well, then I passed 300m and I needed to run about 48. Then I needed to run 31 seconds the last 200m. I just didn't have it though. McMillan ran the exact time I was going for and won the heat. 13:48.00. I'm super pumped for him. I was pretty down after. I felt super tired. When I crossed the line I just let my legs give out and I fell down on my hands and knees.
After I did a cool down with a few guys I haven't seen since before my mission and a Kenyan runner who was in Clayson's heat. It was fun talking to the Kenyan. I love the people of Africa so much. They are so kind and humble. It was a tough cool down, like my legs just felt super tired. Not like post-race tired, but just stiff and slow.
A lot of takeaways from the race. I need to work on hydration a bit as well as remember that racing hurts. One more thing, which is probably the biggest, is to relax in the race. In my last track 5k, which was 4 years ago, I relaxed for most of the race, and it went super well for the shape I was in. In this race I was focused on getting position too much. Good experience, now onto MPSF.
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