Notes
I ran my last race of the season today at the Div III New England meet. I went in seeded 8th with a 32:30 from last weekend's meet, which was a solid place to be. I came through the first 5K in 15:58 which was exactly what I had planned on and that felt smooth. After that though I started to fall apart a bit, obviously finishing in a big positive split. I tried to stick with the packs but they dropped the pace after 5K and I just wasn't feeling as good as I had wanted to. I ended up finishing in a PR 32:23, but that's basically the same time as last weekend minus the terrible wind. And the 11th place finish was rather worse than I had been hoping for (it certainly didn't score).
More generally, and probably more importantly, I feel like I've been wimping out in a lot of recent races. I expect to feel good for the whole thing (which obviously isn't realistic for a 10K) and then when it starts getting tough I think I'm falling apart and let the pace go. I've always thought of myself as a mentally tough racer (and person) and this really is something that I need to work on. I don't know if I just need to do harder workouts to challenge myself mentally or what, but I need to figure something out before XC.
On the other hand, I'm now done on the track until my senior winter, and there's an awful lot to be said for that!