Notes
Good race today. 8th place in an A/AA race, and 15:22, which I'm sure I can improve upon. I wore my flats today because they're absolutely baller, and I never want to wear spikes again.
I started off the race pretty nervous, I tried my best to calm myself to the best of my ability, but unfortunately, my legs still felt pretty out of it at the start. During the first mile, I kept myself as calm as possible, which allowed me to push through my spaghetti'ed state a lot better. What also made a huge difference the whole race was how I changed my stride. It just felt more efficient, and it allowed me to more comfortably latch onto the group ahead of me without putting nearly as much energy. From what I remember, I kept an eye on the group ahead of me while trying my best to stay with runners pushing towards the group. I noticed during the more inclined half of Detweiler that pushing forward felt a lot harder. So what I ended up doing was keeping my pace between them as consistent as possible, then hitting the other half/more declined part of Detweiler a lot faster. The third mile, though, was just pure pain at every point. I lowkey don't think I've experienced such pain since sophomore year. Now that I've reminded myself of the pain, I think it's just a matter of embracing the pain and, more so, full sending it. I feel like my stomach pains are more of a facade of what I can really do. I might be limiting myself to a certain speed because of the idea of dying but now that I think about it. I might be able to just full send and think about the consequences (throwing up) later... because it might not be as bad as it feels.
Once again, today was pretty promising, and I hope I get an opportunity to act upon my critiques in an up-and-coming race.