States

Another year, Come and gone.

So i'm just going to start with saying, Cross Country is my favorite sport, You get to know your teammates really well and end up like a family.
This year, the entire team has been making phenomenal leaps in amazingness.

Now, I don't actually remember that much from this race, i don't know if thats a good thing or not, so this may be a short post.

Ms. Fournier told us to go out conservatively or else we would overwork ourselves in that first 400 meters. That is the last time i listen to her on something like that. I went out, not slow, but not as fast as i would have. And because we were in box 7, right in the middle, i got boxed in. So I had to make my way to the outside, and then i sprinted past people to get up higher in places. The race went kind of downhill from there.

I reached the first mile, and since i wasn't quite sure where it was I took the latter one, which was the marking on the tree, and clocked myself at 5:30. I figured, that for a first mile that wasn't terrible, although i wish i was doing better. I tried to push it there, however right before we came out of the woods for a second time, Jake, our number 2 runner passed me. I knew Jake was having an amazing race, he had been right on my tail the entire time, but I didn't plan on letting him stay ahead of me. So right before we came out of the woods i passed him back.


The section of woods where you go back in, and get to the 2 mile mark is where i failed. I had jake right behind me the entire time, and so i was able to keep a good pace, but i really didn't make any moves and i should have. I passed through the 2 mile mark at about a 5:40, which put me 18 seconds ahead of last week!!! This gave me energy and I started to make some moves. I passed the scarborough kid who had been pacing off me the entire time and continued forwards.

Next thing I remember is going down the hill before you take a right and go to the finish, i tried to pick it up around this corner, while holding some people off. As I continued down the stretch to the finish chute, i had nothing left, i kept trying to accelerate but just couldn't. A kid from windham blew past me, and i knew that was it, i couldn't let him get too far ahead. I began to accelerate all out, and just went kinda crazy




I managed to edge out the lawrence kid again by mere seconds and crossed the finish line with nothing left. I ran a 17:31, which I knew was incredibly well on this course, especially since my PR was a 17:27 at Belfast, however I was disappointed that because I had gone out a bit slower, I was playing catch-up the entire time and didn't have much energy. However I was incredibly impressed and proud of Jake, our number 2, who ran a 17:37 and PR'd by 30 seconds!




So, with another season gone, i'm wicked excited for next year, however am very sad at the seniors we are losing. Especially Stephen Purcell who began talking to me at the beginning of Indoor track, and really got me to know other runners. And Melody Lam, who also talks to me sometimes.
I am going to miss all the seniors, even if you haven't talked to me that much, you are great competition, and next year I will have fewer runners to run against.

Questions

So I know for me, and quite a few of my team mates ask ourselves many questions while we do our runs.
The main one is

Do other teams talk about us??

What I mean by this, is that, whenever we are doing our long runs, we talk about the upcoming meet. Like for KVACs we were trying to decide, obviously Will and Kelton and Jason are main topics, but other then them we usually discuss what people from there team we want to to beat. Like for the week before Mt. blue Relays, and KVACs we mostly discussed trying to beat Brody, he was our main hope at beating Mt. Blue. Earlier in our season it was more about beating Alonzo and Scarponi. The main question that we always ask each other on runs, is do other teams talk about us. I mean obviously we don't have fast runners like Will, or kelton, but we have decent ones, So we always try to figure that out.

Other then that the other question is
What do you guys do for a workout, cause whatever it is, it works?
Obviously for boys when i say it works i mean for will and kelton and jason, but they are just pretty awesome runners anyways.

So thats my mid week blog, i'll let you know how states go saturday night or sunday morning, I'm sure everyone is oh so excited for those posts. Good luck to all of you running in states with me,e i'll see you there!

Eastern Maine Regionals

Yesterday morning our team was greeted with bad news as we sat on the bus waiting for everyone to arrive. Our number 2 runner, Jake was running late because he thought that bus wasn't supposed to leave until 7:30 as supposed to 7:00. We called him up and he got in his car to head over. On his way he called again with the bad news that he had gotten in an accident and for us to leave without him. Luckily it wasn't bad he has just gone off the road, however he did total his car.

With that bad news we started off. We ended up being the 2nd team to arrive (Mt. Blue beating us by minutes because of our wrong turn) we all unloaded and went STRAIGHT to the bathroom! After we were done, we went out and walked the course. The conditions were much better then last year, there being a ton less mud, however the one big downside was that there was a lot of wind!

The girls race went first and it was pretty crazy. I know i shouldn't have been but when I saw melody out in front I was glad that she was having a better race this week then she did last, plus I knew our girls had it in them to win anyways. Going into the last half mile Katie from Brunswick pulled ahead of Kate by a couple of feet. But then they crested the hill Kate had pulled back ahead by quite a bit.

The girls managed to squeak by with a 4 point lead on Mt. Blue to win. Finally it was our turn. Approaching the starting line I was a bit nervous. We didn't have our number 2 runner, and Colin Swan was running instead. If there was a runner I would want running on varsity its colin, I don't know why, but when we did our strides having colin there next to me just felt right. The main worry was that without Jake we might not have enough to get in the top off. I was rather confident that I would be able to make it (being number 14 last week) but I was really hoping we would make it was a team, we have all worked our Asses off for this race and we deserve to all go no just one. The gun went off and I BOOKED it out of there. I think everyone went out a bit fast to counter-act the amount of wind there was. I was happy to hear after the race that Colin Cundy and Nick D. Were both RIGHT behind me for that first mile, and the three of us were very close behind Will, Kelton, and Jason.

My goal for the day was to run with Will Lundquist from Cony. I went out with him for the first mile (running a 5:15) but then he managed to pull ahead going up the long grass hill. I started to hurt my second mile and felt like I slowed down, but when i reached the second mile and took my split I was surprised, I had run a 5:58, one second faster then I did at KVACS, my only thought then was that I was going to have to run a very fast third mile if i wanted to run sub 17.

I really love the last mile at Belfast because it feels a lot shorter then it actually is. As I went across the bridge I had the Lewiston and Lawrence kid right in front of me. Those were the two I was going for. Going through the little dip roller-coaster is where I made up ground, and cresting that is where I passed the Lewiston kid. I managed to hold him off until taking the turn that brings us back around to the finish sprint. I could not get myself moving until i crested that hill at the very end. Then I started moving. I blew past the lawrence kid and ended up only 2 seconds behind the lewiston kid with a time of 17:27

I was happy with the fact that I got 17:27 and placed 12th which meant I moved up 2 places. However I was mad at the fact that I wasn't able to keep up with Will Lundquist or get a sub 17. However I am now ranked 32 in the state for class A, so if I run fast enough, i may have a small Chance at making it too New Englands, but that chance is very very small.