All-State Championships at Stanley Park

This morning marked my last ever cross country race of my career. While it was almost a relief, I could not help but feel sad, like part of me was gone forever. The day started off as a usual meet day, full of nerves and struggling to gulf down a large enough breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. It was a freezing cold morning, and I'm not going to lie: It pisses me off when we say that the bus leaves at 7:15 am tomorrow morning and people think that means to arrive at 7:15 am. The fact that we had to switch buses twice due to fuel shortage did not help the fact that we were already late. But at least there was no early morning traffic during the ride. We were forced to park at a nearby church about 400m away from the course, so I was forced to carry the water jug and the tent for about a quarter-mile. I cannot imagine that's something good to do before the biggest race of your career. Part of me was nervous watching the girl's race because I was scared of getting lost. The other part of me was somewhat depressed that it was just the 3 of us instead of the entire boys team. After all, this was the first race since my sophomore year that was on a course that I had never run on before. We warmed up on the 2-mile woods-coated path that fed the majority of the course, noticing how wooded and rooted the ground was but not the narrowness of the path itself. Upon returning to the tent, we stretched, put our spikes in, and headed down to the starting line to do strides. But when he gun went off, my nerves shot me forward. It was a tight end start and I just narrowly escaped being boxed in, though I was cut off my several runners at the turning point. During the race, the narrowness of the woods path made passing very difficult; it was also hard to go hard downhill from fear of tripping on rocks or roots. But I must have been doing good anyway because I crossed the 2-mile mark in 11:04. However, that means my last mile was slow because I finished in 17:11. I was disappointed that I did not break 17 minutes and would now possibly never get the chance to do so ever again. But overall, I'd say it was a good end. After stopping for lunch on the way home, we soon arrived back at the school. When I helped my coaches put away the tent, water and ice bags. I shook each of their hands; "thank you both" I said "for everything." During the drive home, I felt so sad and so relieved at the same time, and I swear I had heard Good Riddance by Green Day somewhere in the distance.