Shooting for the Moon

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” 

-Les Brown

This has been my motto during this passed cross country season. At the end of my post last year, I said my goal for this year was a 23 minute 5k. I wasn't sure how possible that would be. I quickly found out that it was possible. More than possible in fact.

The season started off strong when I placed second in time trials, coming in 30 seconds behind my friend Kailey and cutting about 2 minutes of my time the year before.

For the first meet, which was on September 5, I made three goals. I wanted to run a sub 20 4k, place in the top 10 and beat Kailey. I ran an 18:26 (beating my PR by 2:01 minutes), placed 10th and did in fact beat Kailey.

The second meet (Sept 21) was a chilly morning at a fairly flat course. A perfect morning for a PR. And PR I did; my 4k now a 16:59. Another minute and 27 seconds shaved off. Although this was my final 4k PR for the season, I kept steaming on ahead.

September 28 I arrived out of breath because I was late; only 30 minutes until my race started. I was at the biggest meet of the season. If you're a runner in the Midwest, you might know exactly what I'm talking about when I say Rim Rock Invitational. You may now pause to cringe. It was cold, drizzly and muddy. Mud like I have never experienced. Despite my many near-death experiences on the trail, it was surprisingly fun. The first mile was flat and didn't have too much mud. And then it went down hill from there. And uphill. Lots of painful uphills. Going up those mini mountains was hard but coming down was just a controlled fall. If you could keep it in control that is. I quite near did a face plant multiple times while other people actually did end up tumbling down the muddy slopes. I skidded right off the trail a few times, came to complete stops to regain balance and almost wiped other people out as I slid all over. Needless to say, there was no point in hoping for a good time. I, instead, focused on staying upright and finishing without ending up unconscious. I finished the race in 18:32, my worst time of the season but still almost 2 minutes faster than my PR from 2012. I finished 80th out of 238 in the Blue Varsity division.

October 7 was a rescheduled meet. When we had shown up in McLouth, KS a few weeks before, the JV teams were able to finish their races. But just as I was lining up with the varsity girls, the thunder and lightning struck, causing the rest of the meet to be cancelled. So here we were back at McLouth high school. We did a run through and I thought that the course seemed like it would be fairly easy. Nope. It turned out to be deceptively hard. I was struggling at the end, not really wanting to push it in. But I could hear a girl from my rival team right behind me. In fact, she passed me. No, I would never be able to forgive myself if I let her beat me. It was one of those days that I dug deeper than I thought was possible. And yet my time still wasn't close to what I wanted.

Carl Ozarwick is an interesting meet because it isn't run by team but rather by age group. You run individually and there is no team score. Although a little hilly, I still like the course. It was a very strong race in which I came in 4th in the junior division with a time of 17:32 (4k).

The 14th was my first 5k of the season. My goal at the end of last year was to hit the 23 minute mark for a 5k this year. I got a time of 23:17 on the hilliest course second only to Rim Rock and placed 2nd. It was the least competitive meet of the whole season so I wasn't exactly pushing too hard. I locked in my second place win at about the quarter mile mark.

At West Platte, the 29th, I was determined to do a sub 23 and I was fairly confident that was possible. I invited my first track coach and his family to come watch me. His son ran to different points on the course calling out my splits and telling me that I needed to catch this next person to get my goal. I can say that was one of the most helpful things anyone could have done for me during that race. I crossed the finishline at 22:36, ecstatic that I had actually done it!

October 23rd was the last meet before homeschool nationals. I remembered that last year at the Richmond meet I had a lot of energy during the course of the race. I always feel like I could have done a little better in all of my races but this one in particular I knew for a fact that I hadn't used enough energy to make the race the best it could be. This year I was going to redeem myself. I'm not sure if it was the course, but I felt that extra energy again and said I was going for a sub 22 this time. At this point I was getting doubtful that I could keep meeting these insane goals. After all, I had already cut a minute off my PR last week; how could I do it again? They had altered the course slightly from last year which took out a very steep hill so that made me feel a little more comfortable. I started the race easy for the first quarter to half mile but broke free soon after. I was getting my goal and that was final. Every once in a while I would hear a split called out which reassured me that I was on pace. The finish was just about come into sight when I heard a split called out that made me happy. I'd have to run hard but I could do it. I battled that last quarter mile knowing very well what I wanted. I crossed the finish line truly exhausted but eager to see if I had done it. I hobbled over to my coach, almost hesitant to ask, fearing disappointment. He smiled at me and showed the time he had written down: 21:33. My eyes widened as it sunk in. That was another minute and three seconds from my PR set a few days before. I had redeemed my self-that's for sure.

Homeschool Nationals was the first weekend of November. We got to Springfield earlier in the afternoon to check in with the friends that we always stay with when we're down there. Later, KEW and I went to the course with the team to do a run though. After which, we went to Fazoli's to fill up on pasta. Most people were staying in a hotel so I, along with KEW, tagged along and hung out in the lobby for awhile. Most of us girls painted our nails like we had done last year.

The race day weather was very similar to last year: a bit chilly for spectators but perfect for the runners.

I placed very differently this year ranking 5th in varsity rather than 4th in JV. But I was still crushed because I had finished with a time of 21:45. I had reeeeally wanted to go sub 21 and didn't even break my PR. On the bright side, I now knew that the PR I had made the week before hadn't been a fluke and I really could stay under 22.  A college coach from the area had been there to watch and said if I had been on a flat course, with the way I had been running, I could have easily broken 21. This course was extra tricky and I had run my heart out so it wasn't all bad.

Some of the team stopped at Golden Corral for dinner. I ate a lot of salad because I wasn't ready to break my sugar fast quite yet. This is my dear friend, Emily, enjoying her ice cream in front of me.

The Awards Banquet was the next week. I got my letter pin, was recognized for being in the 300 Mile Club this year again and presented our coaches with a book about the season that I had made.

Click here to view this photo book larger
My coach also asked me to make a slideshow for that night so here it is:

In the past, this would usually have been the end of the season (except for the end-of-season bonfire which I was not able to make it to this time). But no, I was able to extend my season for a few more weeks! We were made aware of a club team, the Brocaw Blazers, located in the area. Joining this team gave KEW and me the opportunity to practice with a coach twice a week and go to a fairly large meet in Kentucky.
We got on tour buses bound for Kentucky the afternoon of November 21 and drove all day, ate pizza on the road and stopped in St. Louis at a hotel for the night. The next morning we ate the breakfast the hotel provided and drove until we got to Louisville, KY. Our first stop when we got there was the race course to do a run through and take a team picture. We ate at Golden Corral for dinner and then headed over to our hotel for the night.

The buses left in shifts the next day. My bus left first, bright and early at 7. My race didn't start until 10 so I just took a nap on the bus until it was time to warm up. Warming up seemed like it might be a slight problem because it was so cold but I was layered up enough that once we finished our 10 minute warm up jog, I was sweating. As soon as I took off my sweats, just before my race began, the cold hit me but not as hard as I thought it would. That day, I learned the trick of slathering baby oil on exposed skin to block some of the wind. After only maybe a half mile, I was warmed up and into the racing groove. This was the flattest course I had ever run on so I felt good about this race. I knew I wouldn't be placing very high but a PR was there for sure. In fact, I wanted a sub 21 minute 5k and I knew it was in there. I finished the race in 24th with, sadly, a time of 21:12. Not the sub 21 I wanted but it was still a huge PR! Here is a video of the race. I show up plenty of times but even better, I am interviewed after the race.
This is an album of pictures taken of my race. wowtrackshots.com/p1038179884

After our races, my friend, Henry, and I ran around watching all the races. He actually did some videoing of the action. This is the video he made of the whole trip up until the end of the meet.
I failed to realize that there was an ongoing awards ceremony until after the time I was supposed to be there. I also hadn't realized the I had placed in the top 25 so I would have gotten a personal award. At least I made it in time for the team award. KEW's race was the very last one. He didn't do as well as he had wanted to because he got boxed in for part of the race but you can click here to watch his race. I stuck around for his award ceremony and took some pictures of him getting his personal award. Unfortunately, it was getting unbearably cold so I went back to the bus before he got his team award.

As soon as the last of the awards had been handed out, the team went to Ryan's for dinner. Because we had already checked out and packed the buses that morning, we were able to get on the road as soon as we were done with dinner. We were driving straight through tonight, so it was mostly watching movies and sleeping the whole way home. At about 3am, we pulled into Lee's Summit where our dad picked us up.

Now that the season is over--OK it was over two months ago (I'm a slow writer, I know)--I look back and have no idea how I did what I did. Although I'm not in the elite group, I still went from beginner to semi-competitive in just one short year. I shot for what I thought was the moon and ended up hitting the sun on accident. I wish I knew how I did it but I hope I can keep improving and make next year, my last year of high school cross country, the best it can possibly be. So I'm going to make my new insane goal: sub 20.