Last Home Meet

Underdog Billy Mills (722) becomes the first American to win the 10,000m race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games

Today was actually very exciting because today was my last time I would ever race on our dreadful home course. Our course has been plagued by the natural tectonics under the surface. Bombarded with land blemishes like steep uphills, slanted straightaways, and hard sharp turns. It is by far one of the slowest courses in the DCL, and it is all on weak dirt and occasionally sand. I had just raced on this course a week ago and managed to pull an 18:44 compared with the 17:56 I ran last year. However, when the gun went off I shot out and began to almost stride through the first 400m. The mistake i had made the previous race was starting off too slow which made it harder to speed up in the middle and end. But for some reason I felt a sense of endorphins and confidence rush through me during the race, and with every person I passed I felt better and better. I made the effort to go out hard during the first mile, then settling in and conserving the second, then the last short lap came around and I bolted my way through the football field and up the hill. By the time I came back down the hill I used my kick to stride my way past the lake and up to the track. I felt as if I was nothing; light as a feather as I sprinted down the straightaway and crossed the line at 17:49. Even going as far as to beat the "second best" kid on my team who had beaten me at every meet this season, by four seconds. It was at this moment that I knew I was "back" and whatever had come over me was gone. It's kind of frightening now because my block was the whole reason I put this blog together. But there is one other person on our team who has come down with some sort of untreated block, the former captain. Today, he ran a 20:50, compared with his freshman time of 19:30, and his 5k record of 17:55 he ran as a sophomore. Now that I am, back, I cannot help but still not feel satisfied knowing that another runner has it far worse than I did and that I was feeling so bad for myself.