Warmed up on the course with the girls.. some of us had to go to the bathroom the whole time.. by the time we finally got over to them, it was almost race time. Kinda scary.
Race: Well, we got to the line and I was feeling pretty confident. Still nervous, but confident. We closed our eyes to pray, and when we opened them, everyone was gone. I thought the race had started. Turns out the guy said everyone could do a stride out, but we missed the memo cause we were praying. About then, I got really nervous. We started, and it wasn't a fabulous start for me, but I was in an okay position. Mia got out in front of me, and I decided to stay with her. But then I was feeling good, so I started moving up. The entire first mile, I felt great. A little before the mile mark, I looked up ahead for Stoner, but I couldn't see her. Then I realized she was running right with me, on the opposite side of the path. That was cool. Our first mile was 5:45.. crazy stuff. A little after the mile, I started to fall back a bit.. But I was still pretty positive mentally. That first mile really helped my mind out, I guess. When we got a little before the pond, Coach told me to get back in it, so I went and passed a few girls, and then we got to the 2 mile mark: 12:20. Second mile was quite a bit slower. When we got to where there was 1000 meters left, Coach told me to start accelerating. I did.. but the dumb stretch just kept GOING. I lost it a little bit right there. When we got to the flags and some guy said to someone around me "push if you wanna break 20!" I was like "well shoot. I've at least gotta break 20." So I started pushing, although not as great as some of my other finishes, and I passed 5 or 6 girls. I felt pretty good about this race. Much MUCH better than last year. I cooled down with Michael and Casey and Byron as they warmed up, and ran around cheering during their race, and then I did some more with Michael after his race, cause someone needed to run with him or he'd have fallen in a ditch or something. | 