The temperatures were in the low 70s for the race and it was sunny. I have never run on this cross country course before. I have photographed many races there and only seen small bits and pieces of the course. I am very cautious on cross country courses. I know most of them have uneven running surfaces. I had my ankle braces on to make sure I could run the course the best that I could without twisting my ankles.
About an hour before the race started, I asked the volunteers about the course. One of the high school volunteers wasn't even sure of the course. She had to ask another volunteer to come over and answer my question. It would have been more helpful to have a map printed up of the course. After hearing a description of the course, I did a warm up on the first mile of the course. The first mile included surfaces of grass, gravel, dirt, rocks, roots and hills. One of the largest hills on the course is right in the first half mile.
The turnout of the race was small. The race director was pleased that a high school boys and girls cross country team from Toledo, Ohio drove up to run. When the race started, I found myself near the back of the small pack. I found myself in behind a couple of the boys from the cross country team. I decided to keep with them. I passed one of the boys prior to the big hill in the beginning on the race. When running up the hill, I was right behind another boy. I ended up passing the other boy at the top of the hill. I knew the boy would be right on my heels if I didn't surge away from the hill. I ended up catching up a girl shortly after the hill and passed her too.
Once I broke away from the two boys and girl, I was by myself. Heading towards the mile mark, the course took us through the woods. I was about to make the turn heading into the woods and I passed a girl standing on the side of the course. Her coach just ran out of the woods and over to her. I don't know if she had a cramp or what, but I heard her coach tell her to she needed to get going and head toward the woods. That meant the girl was now behind me. I needed to pick up the pace to keep her behind me.
Coming out the woods, we were running near an open field where spectators were standing. A woman cheered me on, then a few seconds later she was cheering on the girl I just passed prior to entering the woods. I knew she was close to me. For the second half of the course, most of it is on a trail through the woods. The course through the woods was winding. When I made a turn, I was able to see the runners behind me. They were close. I kept telling myself to keep up my pace. I passed the second mile mark in just over 18 minutes. I heard the volunteers shout out times for the runner behind me. I ran around a curve and took a quick peek to see where she was. The girl was about 10-15 seconds behind me. My goal for the rest of the race was to keep her behind me.
The last mile seemed to take a while. It seemed that way because we were running long stretches of straightaways in the woods. If felt like we were never leaving the woods. Heading out of the woods for the last time, we had a short and steep hill to climb. I didn't expect that at all. It was a momentum killer for me. I could feel myself slowing down a lot to climb that hill. Once I was over the hill, my legs didn't have much left to them.
We ran on the warning track of the baseball in the final stretch of the race. On the baseball field, you could see where everyone was. I knew as long as I held my pace, the girls behind me wouldn't catch me. Just ahead of me was another boy. I was running him down until climbing the last small hill. After leaving the warning track, we were ran on the side of a hill which flattened out. We crested the hill and then ran down it. That is where the boy took off. I wanted to take it easy to make sure I wouldn't fall down the hill and land in gravel. Once I was off the gravel and back on grass, I ran as fast as I could to the finish line.
My finishing time was 28:59.05 and I was first in my age group. I didn't run this race last year because it was held the same day of another race that I ran. This course is tough and I think I will be back next year.
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