The best pace is a suicide pace

We do the warm up. Coach explains the event. My handicap is 18:15. We are told the course is 3 miles, and due to my PRless season, I intend to go ham, knowing it will be a flat course, hoping I can finally drop some time. Clayton starts, I begin five seconds after him.  It takes me almost half a mile to catch him. Sprinters. I later discovered we ran at 4:30 pace for a while at the beginning. I eventually pass Clayton, then Kenny. No one else offers any resistance. I keep moving up. I pass lots of people, I run fast. I get to the last 400, and there's a huge pack ahead of me. I kick hard. I pass lots of people. As I cross the line coach says, "33:03." Those of you who know math will note that 33:03-18:15=14:48. The watches tell us 2.85. 14:48. 2.85 miles. That's my time today. I found a race converter on the internet which informed me that I would have run a 15:37 if the race had been a full 3 miles. The goal is 15:30 for region. Based on current rankings, that puts me in 5th, right in front of Haden Penrod, who I 've been really close to beating this season, so it's not too unrealistic. It's only about a minute PR. I've done it before. I'll do it again, especially if it's the only one I get this year. Surely the training has done something, right?

Recovery run at 8:00 flat. Minimal core workout. Conversation with Coaches about region rankings. If our top five guys drop 4 positions each, then we will qualify for state. This shouldn't actually  be too difficult. I intend to drop ten or so positions myself. 

Easy speed workout. raced One 800 first, my first lap was 66. final time was 2:21. Clayton ran 2:07. Why he long jumps I'll never know. We next did 4x400 at pace with finish. 68, 72, 72, 68. Not too hard today, I kinda like tapering.

I did not play tag after we were told to do a 20 minute recovery run. No matter what anyone says, I did what I was told. After the run, we played one round of dodgeball, then did senior speeches.

Region VIII championship. They shoulda called it the chumpionship. This weekend did not go well. We needed to lose 20 points from the rankings to state qualify. We didn't. We finished basically exactly where we were ranked. 6/7. Yay. Small consolation is that I qualified individually, but state will just be really depressing without the other guys. S/O to Rylie for also making state. My personal mistake was going too fast the first mile. If I'd known I were going 5:10, things would've been different. I died hard at the end. I feel really bad for Clayton though. Came in 19th, one position off of a qualifying spot. Can't wait to train for state alone.