Real first meet

The what-would-have-now-been first meet was again cancelled by Bedford hours before it was supposed to take place. So instead, my coach decided that because the weather was perfectly good enough in our opinion, which it was, we would have a mock-meet. An inter-squad competition against each other. Because we did not feel like spending as much time as at a regular meet, all distance people were put into the one mile instead of those who typically do the 800m or two-mile. The problem now was that, in every meet, I always had a couple-hour period of mentally preparing before the race. Now that I only now knew that we would still run a mock-meet, I was nervous that I would not run as well. Instead of a meet, where my adrenalin keeps up my motivation and endurance to go harder with less pain, it would be a long workout where I start at the top of my energy level and only go down from there. The only part that would make it feel like a real meet is that I had two puffs with my inhaler and had hydrated plenty over the past 24 hours. The other benefactor is that it was cold and foggy so I would not overheat, even though cold weather makes it harder to run faster because the blood thickens and cannot flow as fast. But I have always noticed that I always feel better, though not always run super well, whenever it is cold outside. And in the heat, the opposite happens; I always feel terrible for most of the race but usually end up clocking in a better time. At the start of the race, I noticed that I felt light and stable; not perfect, but stable. The entire race went by so quickly I cannot really remember anything specific about it. All I know is that I felt much better than if I were doing a workout and that I was already on the last lap in no time. To my surprise, while Vincent Dong and Tyler Morris still just narrowly beat me, I was able to run it in 5:14. Obviously not my greatest time, but for my first meet that was not even a real meet, I can't be too upset.

That was all two weeks ago. This past week over Spring Break, there was a meet scheduled at Waltham. I had just returned from Pittsburgh the day before and had only managed to get a few runs in before the day of the meet because I was gone for the two preceding practices. I was relieved to find out that Tyler would be doing the 800m instead of the mile, just one less reason to embarrass myself by losing to a freshman. My only real competition would be with Vincent. It was a boiling hot day with fast winds, the exact opposite of what you want in any running event. There were only three Waltham runners doing the one-mile compared to the ten of us Weston runners, which is a first for us. At the start of the race, I found myself stable but not breathing smoothly, it did not slow me down but certainly did not help. Vincent and one of the Waltham runners was ahead of me for the first two laps, but halfway through the third I gradually began to speed up and passed the Waltham runner. Through the fourth lap I gradually got faster and faster, I was never able to quite catch Vincent, but I only finished s quarter-second behind him, clocking in a 5:10. I would have expected faster but it wad the first actual meet of the season and the weather was miserable. Our next meet is now Wednesday the 27th at Concord Carlisle, who have been D1 for as long as I can remember. So I'm hoping to have competition to push me to go faster.