8++K

The 8(+) K of the winter cross country series was Sunday and I placed third in my age group! I waited until today to post at school so I could load pictures as I posted.



The race. We got loads of sleep Saturday night, so I was fully rested on Sunday. I had an early breakfast and an early lunch of mac and cheese. I'm not a big fan of these races being at 2pm because I don't want to eat too much, yet I don't want to starve. We left around one so we could get there early and have a decent warmup. The weather was unbelievable on Sunday - lots of sun, but not too hot. I'm just glad the weather wasn't like it was all week - EXTREMELY cold!

My plan for this race was to start off fairly conservative - not up with the fast cross country guys, but not all the way in the back. This being my fourth race ever, I'm still trying to figure out how to strategize on race days. I started conservative, then I picked up my pace as I went. My goal was to run the course at around a nine minute pace. I felt good starting - my heel was aching some and it continued to stretch/ache through the entire race. I did not get the gosh awful stitch in my side that I got in the 5K so that was a plus, but I felt as though I could get one at any minute. I think I need to mentally prepare myself better on race days - I get excited, the adrenaline pumps, and I get all out of whack and I end up performing worse in the race than I do in my training runs.

There are no mile markers on these courses, so throughout the race I was not sure of my pace, and I was not sure when I should push and when I shouldn't. For the most part, I ran alone. I passed a few people here and there, but other than that it was just me and the trail. The race ends with a creek crossing and I'll try to post a picture of that later. I crossed the finish line at 49:33, which is not as fast as I would like. The pace ended up being around a 9:43 mile, which I am not happy with at all. I have trained with Drew on those same trails going for upwards of 7-9 miles very close to a 9 minute mile pace, which reinforces my belief that I need to better prepared mentally for these races. I am still in second place overall in my age group with the last race on Sunday (10K). My achilles was way sore after the race, so this week I will probably bike and stretch a lot to get ready for Sunday.