Notes
NIRCA Regionals - A "true" cross country course, Steve Krauklis
Going to go over pre-race first. Going into the warmup, I felt fine, but once we started threshold, I started having that same chest problem that surfaced at the beginning of the Parkside race and all of my other races. I kinda expected that, so I just ignored it for now.
Goal was to get top 10 overall, which felt realistic. Got off to a good start with Frintner and Somerfield and not too far behind the rest. The front group was like 20 meters ahead of me, but that was fine. I was hoping to catch them later in the race. Went through my first set of hills in the forest and honestly, those drained me a lot more and a lot quicker than I thought. By the time I came out, I was close to behind Jared and Josh, but I was already tired at this point. Also, I started having the same chest problems I had in Parkside. I was hoping to stay behind them until I was able to work with them, but once we went through the second set of hills, I completely died. I think it was a mutual consensus among the team that at this point was when people really started to suffer, but I think I suffered harder than anyone else. I mentally broke and fell off the two badly. I kept hearing the girls shout Ryan a little after me, so I was hoping that he would catch up to me and we could work together for the last 2k or so. Never really got back into a groove and just hung on to the Minnesota/Missouri guy (forget which one) in front of me for a good chunk of the race. At the stretch, Somerfield caught up to me at this point and kicked hard, but unfortunately, I couldn't because I was starting to feel like throwing up. Pretty much coasted at the end because no one else was behind me.
Postives: Held on strong for an extremely tough course. Made me very determined to race well at Nationals.
Negatives: Didn't reach my goal of top 10. Mentally collapsed at the hills, fell off way too much and did not recover fully from the hills.
Overall: I'm pretty upset with this race. I had some high expectations going into this, but never met them. I think I need to seriously reevaluate how I race hilly courses because there's no way I'll be able to race well at Hershey if I race the same way I did today. I think that has to do with better breathing and posture when going up and down hills. I also need to teach myself to not panic at the sight of hills and learn to conquer it piece by piece. It really pains me to see such a huge gap form between me/Somerfield and the rest of the top 7. They did very well and I was upset I didn't race as well as they did. Fortunately, I have 3 weeks to figure this out and my season is not over yet. I have one more chance to prove myself that I can mess with the very best. Hershey is going to be extremely tough, but I know that with prudent preparation, I will not be intimidated by it like freshman year.