Notes
NIRCA Nationals at Masterson State Park in Lexington Kentucky
Don't really know how to take this one. I knew that I probably shouldn't have run with the way I've been feeling, and with how tired I've been the last two weeks, but I still thought I had more in me that this. On the warm up, the threshold section felt hard, and I could feel the team pulling away from me even then. Knew this was not going to go well. Tried to roll with it though, and stay positive. Started in the back of the group off the line with the plan of getting into the race and trying to move up and be aggressive as the race went on. Went out the first mile and was surrounded by so many people. Hit the mile mark in like 5:10 and knew that was right where I wanted to be with the fast start. But then, up the hill, I just started going backwards. I had nothing to give on the uphills and I got passed and passed by what felt like the entire race. Hit the two mile in just under 11 minutes and that was the last thing I really remember about the race. I just tried to get to the end. Almost just walked off of the course more times than I can count, but persevered somehow. The end mercifully came and my embarrassing showing finally came to an end.
One thing that kept me going was the incredible support from this. There were so many cheers and encouragement that it meant a lot. Also, there were a lot of bright spots in our teams races! Both B squads went out there and set a strong tone early. S/O to Henry for PRing in his last club race ever! In women's A, Mocogni and Beth both brought some hardware home, and Heather ran awesome through adversity. Frintner ran the race of his life (so far) and showed some of the potential that our whole squad had today. He's going to be a force to come. Josh also finished his freshman campaign strongly.
There are a lot of positives to take away from this race, even if the end result was so much worse than we ever imagined. Men's A return 6 athletes from this years squad. There's a lot of work to do, but this team is not done yet. Also, travel for the meet went as well as I ever could have imagined. Hopefully will get a chance to plan next years trip and make it even better.