You've got to want it to win it

This morning Natalie had the mile at Arcadia, I warmed up with her again with laps around the baseball fields and basketball courts.  Bill found a bunch of spikes on the ground and a plastic baggie, so we started picking up all the spikes we could find on the ground, and there were a lot!  Again, Natalie ran an awesome race, and on tired legs too!  She didn't really want to cooldown, so we just went to the beach :)  

Again I don't really know how much I ran for warmup and stuff, but I was doing laps at the baseball field and basketball courts like yesterday.  I started them on my own, Bill was busy seeing about getting a pair of spikes from nike for a free trial but he joined after he had gotten a hold of those.  Earlier we had talked about strategies so I was feeling pretty ready.  I'm guessing I might have gotten 3 mile warmup, I don't really know but I just kept going until a few minutes before going to the bull pen.  I took my Gu and then took the borrowed spikes and went into the bull pen and changed into them.  Then I did a few drills and stuff.  They let us out of the tent and sent us right over to the line.  I did a stride on the way over.  Then they let us do a stride out and back before having us line up.  I was seeded number 4 so I got to start on the main line and in the second lane.  Girl 2 was missing so us first 3 seeds had a little more room on the line.  They shoot the gun fast in California!  So fast that the officials weren't ready because some of the girls didn't know to line up on the waterfall start.  Once they clarified that the second start was a success.  I got into a good position going out, I was towards the front of the group and I was able to get a spot on the inside of lane one.  For that first lap I just stayed where I was and moved with the pack.  First lap was a 73.  Along the straight for the other side I decided I wanted to be a little closer to the front of the pack so I went out to the side to move up and then moved in again.  I decided I should only move on the straightaways because after watching some of the races yesterday I had noticed some girls who had run on the outside the whole time and thought what a waste of energy that would be.  At the 800 the pack was at about 2:31.  During the third lap I was able to work up into 4th, we were still in a pack and were just all going with each other still at that point.  Going into the 4th lap the girl in second made a move past the leader and then they picked it up a little but I stayed back a little with the pack.  Then 2 girls moved up from behind and I was in 6th.  Then with us top 6 we were all running in a line instead of side by side.  The leaders at the mile were at 5:06, I was at 5:09.  By then it looked like I was slipping into no-man's land as I was falling behind the top 5 a little but.  But using the big screen I could see that I still had a little bit of a lead on the pack behind me, but that they were closer to me than I was to the girl in front of me.  On the curve on the far side I remember Bill, Dakota, and Natalie all yelling "Fireman" at me which I think really helped. I was able to push like in our workout.  Starting the 7th lap there were 3 girls that came up past me, one of them passed me and then went to the inside but then she slowed down too much so I went right around her and stuck with the other 2 girls that had come.  One of them was really pushing to stay ahead of me but I was not going to let her go.  Going into the final lap I was just behind her, then with 300 to go I started to push even harder and was able to break away from her.  I kept pushing because I didn't want her to catch back up to me.  And I was closing on the girl in 5th too so that gave me more energy as I got closer to the finish.  Going into the last 100 I was able to get up onto my toes and I was closing on the other girl, but she kept looking behind her and then would speed up when she saw me.  I could tell she was scared and really wanted to catch her for having looked back but I finished just .65 of a second behind her.  But I did secure 6th place which got me a medal :)  I liked the nike shoes that I tried, I think the way the spike plate is set up gets me to run on my toes more because it is more comfortable that way.  I did bleed on them though, they were rubbing on the tops of my feet.  Afterwards I changed shoes and ran a cooldown with Bill until I felt like being done.  I'm guessing that might have been 2 miles.  I was very happy with my race afterwards, now I am ready to really focus and do my best in all of my workouts so I can break Rosie's state records! 

Here is a link to the race video:

http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?do=videos&year=2011&pg=1&event_id=63&video_id=41506&folder_id=1714&offset=3#video