The Monster Lives

This weekend the team went to Wisconsin Lutheran for the Pre-NAC meet. The weather was great, a cool 50 degrees with a warm sun that peeked out from behind the clouds every once in a while. It was great to test out the course that we'll be competing on at conference in a few weeks, but for some of us this meet had far greater importance.

Pfeuffer and I raced for the first time since February. I mean honestly, everything-or-nothing, fast-as-you-can-go RACED. After sitting on the sidelines for so many months I think the both of us needed to get out there and compete more than anything else in the world. I did my best to put together as inspiring of a pre-race speech as I could muster, focusing on giving the glory to God and remembering where all of our successes come from. Minutes later the gun had gone off and we were kicking some major grass.

I had planned to shoot for a 6-minute mile pace in the hopes of breaking 30 minutes. I was able to hover just over that for the first 3 miles, hanging with Muffenbeck and eventually pulling away to catch up with Daniel. At the 3 mile mark I could feel the fatigue but knew I had yet to summon the monster, the ace in the hole that's always guaranteed to save you some time in the end. I attacked the pace and tried to get Daniel to go with me but he couldn't seem to keep up. With about one mile left I found myself catching up to Kolbach, who I quickly passed. He managed to hang in there though, just as I'd hoped, and the two of us pushed all the way through to the finish. Kolbach ended up finishing a couple dozen meters or so in front of me as my legs shut down in the final minutes. The monster came out in just about full force, getting me to the line and leaving me there feeling as if I might drop at any second. I haven't been so sick, so sore, and so tired at the end of a race in a LONG time (but then, I haven't finished a race at all in a long time). My final time was 29:48. Not bad for starting camp week at 2 miles a day.

I wasn't the only one who had a good day. Ash won the meet as the 2nd overall finisher (one unattached guy got him in the last mile) with a time of 25:55. Jon O and Braun both dropped a huge amount of time to get into the low 29-minute range. Ryan and TJ also did great by cranking out some mid-28s.

After waiting around for what seemed like forever, due to a course confusion that resulted in the disqualification of the top 18 female finishers, it was announced that our men's team had taken 2nd and the women had won the meet. We crushed all of the NAC teams in attendance and proved to ourselves that this team, this family, can accomplish everything we set out to do back in August.

And for a smaller, frustrated-yet-patient group of us known as Cripple Command, it was proven that no matter what happens, THE MONSTER NEVER DIES.