Notes
REGIONALS AT OBERLIN!!! Quite a crazy series of events. Well I felt great all this week and last, so I knew that if it happened that I had to run I would be ready. Didn't get as much sleep as I wished thursday night, but I figured I would make it up on the bus. Had a good time with the team at the hotel the night before. Even though I knew I wasn't supposed to run, I still went through the relaxation that night in the hotel room. I had trouble relaxing. I kept thinking about the race and a bunch of other things. Then I had a lot of trouble falling asleep. I guess I was thinking too much or something. And it didn't help that Dalton kept scooting closer to me haha. We woke up to shakeout at 7. I figured I needed to do everything the guys that were running were doing, since I needed to be ready just in case. When we got to the course me and the rest of the guys who weren't running set up the tent and everything. We were just hanging out for an hour or so. After a while I saw Buck and Ponton getting ready to go run. The whole time I had planned on running after the race, so I would be ready if I needed to be. But there was only an hour or so until they had to warmup so I thought they would be alright to race. So me, Buck, Ponton, Hoover, Horner, and Huston all went on a 5 miler through town. It was easy, but not necessarily easy at the same time haha. When we got back I stretched. Shortly after stretching, I went with the guys to warmup. We got back and I did drills with them. Then they all got ready and went to the line to keep warming up and everything. I stayed back for a little while. I then saw Waterman dashing to get ready. After a little bit he said that he was missing his number, so me, Mahone, and coach helped him look for it. We looked all over the tent, and through everybody's bags, just in case he accidentally put it in someone else's. At the time I was eating a bagel, and I gave one to Mahone as well. We couldn't find his number anywhere. I was thinking that he could use mine as a last resort. Coach said that we couldn't do that because he would get disqualified. Coach went out of the tent for a minute while we kept looking. He came back in and said "Burris you're gonna have to run it." I said "Are you serious?" Coach was like "Yeah he can't use your number, he'll get DQ'd." I just said "ok" and started scrambling to get ready. The first thing I did was spit out the bite of bagel I had in my mouth. I felt really bad for Jake at that moment, but I knew I had to hurry. I had my tights on, but I didn't have my jersey, so Zach took Buck's number off of his jersey and I put his on. Buck and Mahone started to put my chips in my spikes. I peed really quick and ran over to the start line. The other 6 guys were like "You're running?!" and started trying to pump me up. I tried to get as loose as I could. There aren't many other times that I have been more nervous than I was. When I put spikes on, one of them was a lot tighter than the other, but I didn't think I had time to fix it, so I just kept them like that. I also realized that I didn't have my racing socks on. Buck told me to not even think about it, and I realized it would be ridiculous if I did let that get to me. The whole time I was getting loose I was thinking to myself "You are the most clutch mofo on this course right now. Nobody is as clutch as you. You gotta step up for your team and prove yourself." I started in the back of our box, but I kind of like doing that sometimes. We got out pretty well, and I noticed that Kevin was pretty much right in the front at the beginning. When we got to the first turn and slowed down, I was kind of thankful for that little bit of rest. I think it helped me out to kind of calm down and get ready. All of our guys were in front of me, but I was pretty much right behind them. I felt surprisingly nice and kept those guys within reach. After a mile or so I started passing a bunch of people. I passed Nick and then Billy. I got up behind Kenny and Dalton. I stayed behind them for a while, and then Dalton pulled away from us. I could still see him for a while though. I think Kenny went up in front of me too. I caught back up to him and passed him though later on. Most of the race I was passing people. When we got to a little over a mile left, for some reason, I thought that we were gonna go straight in to the finish, but we had to do another woodchip loop. I was thinking to myself "Is this it? Why is no one picking it up?" and I started picking it up a bit. Then I realized that we had like over a mile left still. I think if that would have been the finish I probably would have been all-region. Soon after that I started to die a little. Kenny slowly caught up to me and passed me. I tried to hang on to the back of him, but a couple guys passed me and kind of blocked me in. When I got around them I couldn't really catch back up to Kenny. I tried to just hang on as best as I could, but some people were still passing me. With 800 left, I saw Hoover SCREAMING at me, and I knew I had to go. I started to pick it up a bit, but I wish I had even more. Once I turned the corner to the last straight, I put the burners on. There was a group of guys in front of me, and I heard people cheering for somebody behind me. The group in front of me had few second gap on me, so I didn't think I could get them. But as we got closer and closer to the finish I realized that I could get them. I pushed really hard but I still finished right behind them. RIGHT after I finished, Brian ran over and picked me up as he screamed haha. I was pretty dead. When he put me down, I stood and caught my breath for a little bit. Then I tried to get my chips out of my spikes, but no one would let me haha. Everybody kept grabbing me and stuff, and eventually Doug got them out for me. The whole team was right outside the chute hugging us and stuff. I finally found out Kevin won, and I was too hyped. Our team did so awesome and I'm really excited for nationals. I want to prove that me running that race wasn't a fluke. It was an awesome weekend spent with the team, and a great race. I do know that I can be a lot stronger that last mile. I did run pretty well, but so did the rest of the guys. All of the top 5 had PR's. Billy had a good race, and he is getting back to how he ran at IU. I have no doubt he's gonna kill it next week. Nick didn't have the greatest race but it wasn't horrible. He's still capable. I'm proud of all the guys, and the JV guys definitely helped me out by screaming their heads off.