Saturday, November 8, 2008

Implosion and recovery - all in 4 miles

Today was the final cross country championship race. It is a brutal course that hurts. But I was prepared. In the past week I have slept in, rested up and aqua jogged with Roo. I'm quite sure I couldn't have done more to prepare! This is our coach Mr. BSK himself - right before we started I told him my plan was to go out easy and negative split the 2nd loop.

Gun goes off, we're off and I feel good. Mile 1: 5:30 - oh yeah, this resting up thing worked well! I reach mile 2 with a massive side stitch - uh oh, a bit ambitious in that first mile perhaps? Going backwards through mile 3 and getting passed by everyone and their grandmother. OH OUCH this hurts - I spend the next mile trying to recover, throwing all thoughts of negative splitting out of my mind. I reach the final hill and begin feeling better. There are now about 300 yards left in the race. Dangit, must learn to pace these races better!

This is me about 100 yards from the finish. You can see my friends in the background screaming "YOU HAVE TO GO" "GO NOW, THERE'S A GIRL GOING TO PASS YOU ON THE OTHER TEAM!" Ughhhhh. I went. And oh it hurt. And I made it. 


And so now the off-season officially begins. We are having a "kick off the off-season party" tonight just to make it official. I'm sure my next post will include epic pictures.

As for the awesome BSK girls - we got 2nd in the series. These are an amazing bunch of girls - each and every one of them is so talented, dedicated and fun. I'm very proud to be a part of this team! And thank you Running Center for supporting us!