It was finally time for the region meet. The one race that usually ended my season in the past, and the one race I put was the most important race of this season for our team and myself. We were pretty well matched with Mountain Crest for the final spot for the team qualification for the State meet (Top 4 teams qualify.) Box Elder, Bonneville, and Sky View where realistically out of reach for us as a team so we had to beat Moutain Crest. I had already accepted the chance that I might go my High School Cross Country Career without ever making it to the state meet before the race, but I didn't plan on making it easy for whoever would be the one to beat me out of it. This race was also the debut of my new Racing shoes, the Asics Hyper XC, replacing my long time racing shoes, the Gel Dirt Dogs series.
I got a good half mile nervous warm up and went to the line. I liked our position at the start and ended having an alright start. I felt like I was right were I needed to be the first 800 meters. I was leading the Logan pack which consisted of everyone except for Jerrell (who was leading the race.) We were well packed and I knew they were all right behind me. I knew most trusted me with keeping the pace so I sped up a bit to catch some Box Elder kids, hoping they would follow, as well as catching some Mountain Crest kids. Eventually I was right behind the Mountain Crest pack and saw that the whole pack was right behind me. After a Mile the MC pack started to loose us and I knew we were in trouble. That's when my teammate Henry Olsen came up right beside me and helped me pick up the pace again with his surge. Henry contiuned his surge and dropped me. Soon, Sylvan came and was right with me, which really inspired me due to all the injuries he's struggled with this season. The three of us were making ground on many people while the other half of the pack lagged behind. With one mile left, seeing as how MC had the majoirty of their guys ahead of ours, I lost faith in qualifying as a team and went into survival mode. At this point I made my move, going for the individual qualification in which, in between the last two teams, the first three runners qualify to the state meet. While moving up, I saw how far up Henry was and that the rest of the team was still on my tail, so I regained a little hope because I also didn't see much Box Elder kids around, which really surprised me. Assuming most of the Box Elder kids were already ahead (pesimistic thoughts are unavoidable in desperate situations) at this point I was pretty worried and again lost faith in my team beating MC or BE. So I took off harder, solo chasing after Henry who had attacked earlier. I was still third on the team in the final turn and I felt like I was going to make it to state (since the other loosing team we had already swept earlier in the season and I knew there wasn't any of them ahead of me.) Shortly after this feeling was when Sylvan and Mark passed me with about 100 meters from the finish line. My chances for state gone with them, and that somehow just made me sprint harder for an already lost cause. I finished and immediatly saw the race as my last XC race.
At the finish I was tired, really hot, and sweaty. I wasn't mad, or sad. I had already thought this scenario through and accepted the outcome. It just felt like the real. Whatever feeling it was that I had, I begun morphing it into elation due to reflective thoughts of the season and the sight of happiness in the rest of the team (the girls had qualified as a team to the state meet, and Jerrell had won the whole race.) I just kinda walked around for a while and went over the MC tent to congratulate the kids (who I thought were the ones who beat us for the last qualifying spot. To my surprise they were down with the blues too, thinking they didn't make it to qualify for state, they were kind of laughing at it too, which really cheered me up and caused me to laugh at my troubles. Then I saw fellow blogger Connor Mantz and congratulated him with his second place finish and talked to him about his race. I then went over to my fellow teammates and told most of them it was fun racing them for my last year of XC. That's when they started calling out the awards and I just sat under a tent reflecting on my 4 seasons of XC by myself. After all the individual awards they were getting ready to annouce the team results and I got curious and yondered over. That's when they announced that there was a tie for 4th place (the last qualifying spot) between us and Box Elder. Mark helped me up from the ground and I stood alongside my teammates, Sylvan, Henry, Mark, JD, Jerrell and Josh. They announced the results and It turned out we beat Box Elder via our sixth place runner Josh and we all just got really excited since that was our goal all season to make it to state. I felt a great wave of new emotion and wandered over to my previous coach, Coach Reeder. I gave him a big hug and we were both way happy for the team and that a longtime goal of ours was finally reached. Now I have a another race to look forward to, with a whole different outlook.
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