Cross country practice started a week before school started for most people; for me and many others, it started a couple weeks into summer. Eventually, when the season actually started we all started running together more and do harder workouts. Then in a couple more weeks we started having a couple meets, sometimes two a week. Then at the end of the season, we had our conference meet and for most people that was their last meet of the year. I was top four on JV though, so that meant | had a chance to take a varsity spot on the state team.
What I didn’t know was that only the top two on JV could take spots on the team and I finished in third. If I would have known that at the time I might have pushed myself harder, but I didn’t know, so I didn’t push harder to catch my teammates and take a spot. After the track season ended for the year all the top runners, including myself, took a couple weeks off of running for time to rest and recover. When we did eventually start training again, we tried to get as many people together then we’d all run together. Most of the varsity guys and a couple of the faster JV runners showed up for most of our runs.
We usually got together at 8 o’clock at night at the high school, so it was nice and cool for our runs. About halfway through the summer injured my hip and had to back off my miles and recover. I didn’t fully recover until a couple weeks before school started, so I was behind some of my other teammates I’d been running with before. Then a week before school started Coach Short started having the whole team start actual practice. He didn’t waste any time either, on the first day we had a harder workout. Talso wasn’t really used to the heat, since all summer I had been running in the cool night.
Short had us pushing ourselves hard all season because he believed that we, as a team, could accomplish great feats during the season. The Forest City meet, was the second to last meet of the year for most of the team. Thad been steadily improving my times as the season had gone along; I started higher in times than I would have liked, but I was where I wanted to be timewise for the race. The top five varsity guys were taking this race off, so I ran the sixth spot for varsity there along with Tyler, Nathan, Dalton, Mason, Andy, and Luke.
We all did our warm up then our stretches together before our race started. I had been watching the earlier races and saw that the course was running fast, so I knew I would have a good chance to PR here. Going into the race I knew I wanted to push myself to the limit and do as well as | could; I also knew that varsity ran first the next meet. I knew that I could have an advantage on the varsity guys if I could see their time in the next meet, and then go and beat their time, and not the other way around. As all of us were called to the line, I knew it was time to go.
I started off much slower than 1 would have liked at the time, many people passed me right away. After the race, I thought my slow start actually allowed me to have my great time. It was a hilly course, but it helped me greatly. I would sprint up the hills and then stride out and catch my breathe on the downhills, and fall back into my pace. As was coming down the final hill, I saw Coach Short on the bottom yelling. “18:20, 18:21, 18:22, you can break 19! ” There was a kid next to me who looked like he was dead. “Come on let’s break 19,” I said to the guy.
We both took off in a dead sprint racing to the finish, giving it everything we had left. He ended up beating me but I didn’t care because I ran an 18:58, that being only seconds behind some of my other teammates. I accomplished exactly what I had planned for that meet; to run my best time of the year (by nearly a minute and a half) and to stay on JV for the next race. Last JV meet of the year, and I was ready to go. Everyone on the team walked the course together, but we all knew it already since it’s the same every year. Varsity left to warm up and stretch after that while the Varsity girls started.
I watched some of that race and then the other JV runner and I went to warm up for our race. I got the advantage of running the second race because I got to see what time I needed to beat. Tyler ran around a 19:40, so there was basically 3 spots available for us to take. As the race started Nathan, Dalton and I all got out ahead of everybody else in the race, then we heard the gun go off again. We looked back and someone fell, so we had to restart the race. We were not very happy we had to restart, but at the actual start we did the same thing and took early leads.
I ran my first mile around six minutes with Dalton was leading the race, some guy from another school, Nathan next, me not too far behind them, and Andy falling back behind me. Andy was leading me for awhile then I picked up my pace and he couldn’t keep up so he had to fall back. That was the first time all year that I had him beat. Rounding the final turn I saw that Dalton was not too far ahead of me, I knew I should have tried to catch up with him but I was completely gassed. I finished with a time of 19:23, fourth overall and third on the team.
At that point, I thought I had secured the last alternate spot on the state team. The varsity guys also did really well, most of them getting all-conference honors and winning the meet as well. Later that night Coach Short told me that we were only taking one alternate for districts and state, I finished twenty seconds away from that spot. I knew should have pushed myself harder at the end of the race, but I thought I already had a spot and I was out of energy. At first, I was bummed about what happened, but I got over it pretty quick.
Districts were held here, in Garner this year, so we didn’t have to travel far for the race. I didn’t run so I watched the race with some friends; the guys that were running won the race, but not by as much as we thought we could have. Next week was the state meet, and I didn’t even get to go. I forgot to take time off from my job, so I was stuck working exactly when my team was running. Later I learned that we got fifth, and we were expected to win. I know that we lost but if I would have pushed myself a little harder for a little bit I still could have been down there with my team.
