You've got to want it to win it

After a long day of relaxing at the hotel it was finally time to face the heat and prepare to run.  I got to the track in plenty of time to get situated and watch a few events.  After picking up my bib I was told to come back 15 minutes prior to my race.  About 30 minutes prior to that, I started my warmup because as Burke reminded me, I wouldn't need as long to warmup because of the heat.  I went up to the practice track which is currently just a bunch of dirt and did laps there.  After 4 laps I did 4 laps of speedchanges to get my strides in.  When I finished those I went and stretched for a few minutes before taking my Gu and grabbing my spikes to head into the bull pen.  In there I did some drills before changing shoes, and then did a few more while they handed out our stickers.  Finally it was time for our race so they walked us over to the start.  While we were walking they told us that on the other straightaway they would have someone with a hose making a mist for us to swerve into if we were too hot.  Someone said what the rest of us were thinking, they should just spray it on us anyway because we don't have to swerve to get cooled off!  They didn't let us stride on the line but they got us started pretty quick.  For the first lap I was on the outside of lane one with another girl, coming through the 400 at 1:21.  Then, as I suspected might happen knowing that Erin and Allison were in the race, they came up to the front along with a few other girls.  The girl on the inside fell off but I was determined to hold onto the pack and go with them if I could.  The second lap we came in at about 2:40 so still on PR pace for me.  But I didn't want to think about pace, I knew if I did that then I would lose the racing mentality and just watch the clock and be doing math the whole time.  It was getting tough but I still was trying to hold on.  A group of 4 broke away, and then there was a gap followed by a girl in gray, and then another gap before me.  I knew top 5 would medal so I shifted goals towards closing on the girl in gray.  I came through 1200 at around 4 minutes.  I tried to stop looking at the clock after that and to just run.  I kept my eyes up on the gray girl and could tell that I was closing on her, but then on the other side of the track I would notice she had pulled away a little bit so I would refocus and try and get her.  I had no idea how far back the next girls behind me were so that also kept me running in fear.  A few laps later the gray girl dropped out!  By then I was about 200 meters behind 4th place and knew I'd really have to push the rest of the race to keep running it by myself and not falling back to the next group of girls.  With 800 to go the announcer was saying that Allison was coming up on her final lap.  I was determined not to get lapped!  I had 700 to go when I heard the gun for her final lap.  I picked it up and then again with 500 to go I picked it up a little more.  I did not get lapped, and then at 300 I tried to kick.  My kick wasn't very fast, but it was enough to make sure the girls behind me wouldn't catch up.  I felt very sick when I finished, but walked around for a bit before leaving the track.  They had cold towels waiting for us as we finished, it was awesome!  When I took off my spikes (the Nikes, which I have only worn for shorter distances before) I found the tops of my feet rubbed raw and a lovely blood blister under one of my toes.  That was painful, but at least I can plan on getting a pedicure soon now that the season is officially done for me!  I put on my trainers and then went back up to the practice track for cooldown.  I got in a mile and a quarter, then as I was doing another lap my stomach hurt really bad and I had to stop and walk for a bit.  I felt really nauseous but after walking a bit decided to try and run a bit more.  That didn't last long, and then I decided I was done with my cooldown.