I'm not done yet, Mr. President

Yesterday was my final "race" of the season. It was the 2009 President's Run in honor of CUW's President Ferry. Our top 7 were not allowed to run fast, so the men's competition essentially came down to myself, Fife, Jon, and whatever other individuals entered from the community. I thought I had a legitimate chance of winning in the days before the race, but the event itself was a bit different.

My two teammates and I took it out with the lead pack right away and tried to keep ourselves in contention for the victory, but some of the other competitors apparently had decided to start too fast and we all got pretty tired in the first few minutes of the race. Jon even went so far and to talk about how tired he was before we made it out of the opening Runway field (which was still fairly muddy a week after our water-logged conference meet). We ended up hitting the first mile in about 5:30, which was right on the pace I'd hoped to run, but once we entered the Meadow everybody seemed to run low on energy. The wind heading west was a little strong and I found myself joining a line of several other runners drafting off Jon, the self-described "Mother Duck."
It was at this point that Fife started dropping back while we watched the two leaders pull away in front. A minute later Jon started to pull away from me as well, but I refused to let him go and managed to keep up until he started fading himself. Later he said he needed to go to the bathroom. I'm glad I didn't have that problem myself this time (bad past experiences).

I found myself battling one other guy in the last mile, but he got away from me as we approached the road and the home stretch. I should have beaten him but I think I just didn't care enough in that last mile. I finished with a time of just under 18 minutes, which I consider to be a terrible performance. I was 4th place overall however, which is actually my best placing ever in any individual competition (tied with the 1000 meter run at a track meet my junior year of high school). I was also 2nd in the 20-24 age group, so I got a silver medal. Not terrible I guess, considering the small size of the race and the fact that we didn't quite follow our normal warmup and pre-race preparations.

I spent the rest of the day hanging out with Richard, Twiet, and Dave (LAN party!) and later joined them and a few others at Romano's in Cedarburg for a "surprise" pizza dinner for Jade's birthday. Getting there was a bit of an experience for two of our three vehicles, involving one hit deer and a group of pathetically lost friends.


This morning I got up at 7 to do my long run, driving to CUW in the hopes that Richard and a few others would be there to join me. Only Katie K, Jade, and Guppy showed up at first, but Richard finally arrived after they'd left. None of the other guys had woken up, so we went out to do our 10 miles by ourselves. We ran a certain "10-mile-loop" that I had never used before, which turned out to be sort of an extension of the similar 8 mile loop. I felt horrible but that's most likely because it was morning and we were going a little quick. Sometimes that feeling is good though, especially after you're finished.


This may be the final week of the season. I'm not competing at Regionals, so really all I need to do now is show up to practice and go along to Oshkosh this weekend to cheer. Hopefully everybody will do great; I have faith in every member of the team. A couple might have a shot at nationals, so if everything works out well there could be another week after this one. Either way, we're down to the wire, and now my role is to inspire my teammates to release their monsters rather than letting loose my own.




But I think monsters can also come out of the fans on special occasions. Let's just say I plan on leaving everything on the course Saturday, even though I won't be in the race.