So. Last night I woke up at like 3:30 and felt so so sick. My stomach hurt so bad, and that made me kinda nervous about the race.. But when I woke up later, I felt fine. Not even nervous. I ate a bowl of mini wheats and packed a roll and a peach for after the race. I slept some on the bus, which was a miracle, because generally I can't even sit still before a race. But of course, I was way tired, because the fifty zillion kids (not even kidding.. More kids than I have ever seen at a team dinner EVER.) at my house last night didn't leave til 9ish.. It was fun though, so I guess it's okay. We got to suu and watched the JV girls, and warmed up as we cheered for them. Still wasn't nervous.. Just kinda chill. I was way excited to see Kaylee though! We got to the starting line, and i started to feel a teensy bit nervous.. Just a little though. But then I realized how empty my stomach felt.. All I had eaten was that bowl of cereal and our race started pretty late. I was super hungry. But it was too late.. The race was gonna start. So we lined up and the gun went off.. And I slipped. I didn't fall.. But I did roll my ankle and it hurt pretty bad. Thankfully, they forgot to start the clock, so it was a false start, so I could try again. This time I got a much better start. Coach had told us to kinda relax during the first little lap and just get into a position we could work with. So Stoner and I got out there.. But we were in like 10th or something. In my head, I thought 'oh, well we'll pass all these girls- we're always ahead of them.' On the second lap, Stoner started to pull away. I tried to stick with her, but I just felt like I didn't have enough energy. In reality, it was probably just the knowing that I hadn't eaten, rather than the actual hunger. She passed a few more girls, then there were two cedar girls and two desert hills girls between us. I passed the one cedar girl on the big lap, and didn't see her again. Then I started hearing people saying 'go JP.. GO MIA!' and I realized how close Mia was. I knew I had to push it. So on the medium sized lap, I picked it up and went and got the other cedar girl and one of the desert hills girls. It was way hard, and I wasn't sure if I could keep it up for the entire rest of the race. But I couldn't let anyone pass me. Then we got to the last little straightaway, and I could see desert hills right there. So I kicked it in and passed her, and ended up 5 seconds behind Stoner. I felt pretty good about the race, considering I had a pretty bad second lap and still managed to end with Stoner. But then Coach came up and told us we needed to stick with the Hurricane girl and Aimee, the two girls who beat us.. And when we saw our times, we realized it wasn't that great of a race. Kind of a bummer. But glad to have done it.. And it's still the beginning of the season. | 