I have a strong tradition of not doing well at the first race of the cross country season. This meet was the American Fork Grass Relays. We came to this meet very shorthanded due to many of our top runners running or helping out in the TOU Half Marathon. Me and Jerrell were the only ones with Varisty expereince in our 5 man realy team. I was chosen to go first and Jerrell last.
I got in a one mile warm up looking around for a bathroom and finally got to the starting line after some delay. A lot of teams put there fastest runner first and so I had some work to do to keep our team alive. The gun went off and everyone took off sprinting. I knew we were all going way too fast for our frist mile but I still kept going probably because I didn't want to let down my teamates. We were all pretty close the first mile but after that everyone started suffering and slowing down due to the fast start. I shared that same fate. The first mile I ran a 5:20 and the second was a 6:13. I was still pretty close to other runners due to them slowing down as well. I felt so bad that second mile that I couldn't believe I broke 12. The many hay bales obstacles didn't help my suffering. Nothing was feeling good and my whole body was screaming for it to be over. After suffering to the handoff with the baton I ran to the nearest shade I could find and contiued cheering on my team.
Turns out everyone on my team ran a slow time for themselves and Jerrell said it was probably beacuse we handn't had many practices in the heat of the day yet. He finished with a 10:30 and 14th overall. Jake Heslington was there and won all comers with a near course record of 9:57. | 