RACE REPORT: TIRED LEGS

On Tuesday, I had my third track meet in one week. Due to the fact that I am not a machine and that I have to recover sometime, it was not a good one. At least in my opinion. I have no idea why they expect us to be able to run faster with only two or three days of recovery between meets because you can't. Especially if you run the 3000 and 1500. The people in charge need to realize that hey, not everybody runs two 200's so maybe we should give a couple more days between meets (although I haven't run 200's before so I'm not sure how long it takes to recover but it's probably less tiring than the 1500). Because I had just run the 1500 and 3000 on Saturday, I did take the day off on Sunday and ran three miles on Monday. My legs were incredibly tired going into the meet, I could barely do the three miles in 25:30, about 1.5 minutes slower than Friday. I was not expecting good things from the meet, but apparently I did alright.

Our team got out of school early which is always a plus for track meets. Except than we had to go on a hour long bus ride in a school bus because, being only the track team, we don't get charter buses. I have ran on the track we went to once before. I remember about three things from that meet: it was cold and windy, I placed second in the JV 1500, and I almost missed my race because we were in the bathroom. The track is kind of weird; it's backwards, meaning the finish line is opposite where you enter at.

I ran the team warmup, doing two laps and stretching. AK was running the 3000 by herself so I spent some time with her. I waited a little longer than usual, waiting to see if my 4x800 relay team would warmup but they didn't and I didn't know where they were, so I did two more laps by myself. About twenty minutes before the race, my teammates run one lap and call it a warmup with minimal stretching. Considering that two of them run xc, they should know better.

The JV teams ran first, and then our race began. I was running second and I received the baton with only two people behind me, which meant there was a lot of teams ahead of me. My legs were feeling pretty good so I was able to take off and catch a girl on the back stretch. Because we were going about the same pace, I looked to see if her teammates were on that side, so I could pass her in front of them. Yes, this is not the best racing technique and kind of mean, but it discourages the runner. I wasn't sure which team was hers and I waited until after the curve to pass her, near my team.

On the second lap, I passed one more girl. With 100m to go, my legs were tired and my kick wasn't there. I was hoping nobody was right behind me because I wouldn't be able to hold them off and fortunately, I handed the baton off with nobody passing me. I'm not sure what time or place we ended up getting but the 4x800 didn't seem as important to me. I don't like the race very much because you have to sprint two laps and there is not really any racing, just sprinting.

4x800 split- 2:37

JS was supposed to run the 1500 with me but she wasn't there because she was sick. AK decided she would try the big double and run the 1500m along with the 3000m (which she placed third in with a time of 12:00). The meet was anywhere from 25 to 35 minutes ahead so we weren't exactly sure when to warmup. We ran three or four laps as a warmup before stretching. Although my legs were very tired and tight, the adrenaline was flowing because this was the 1500 (my favorite race) and we were running under the lights. My coach talked to us and told me he wanted to see me run 5:15 although he wasn't sure how I'd be after running the big double on Saturday. The weather was a little chilly but nice so I thought this would be possible.

We had a bit of trouble checking in, for some reason they weren't doing this at the starting line or the finish line, or announcing where they were doing this. We went to check in right before the JV 1500 but the guy was ignoring us so we had to have our teammates do this. It seems like we have this problem a lot although I'm not sure how to fix it, except to have the people organize the meets better.

Since we didn't check in, we weren't sure what the lane assignments were, and it turns out there was none. There wasn't really any options except lane one which I took because although it is the worst lane, it also seems to be my lane. I was having to push another girl over even before the race because she was pushing me off the track. We were allowed to cut in immediately, so of course, as soon as the race began I was cut off. After a bit of shoving and elbowing, I went around the pack and moved up towards the front. I usually start at the back but since I had been doing okay, I was feeling confident that I could run in the front. Not a good idea. Don't change your racing tactics during a race.

I was running in 4th place behind 1st and 2nd who were running a little farther up. I wasn't sure how fast I was going but I was feeling good. Then I crossed the line with two laps to go and realized that I was tired. So incredibly tired. I knew I was in trouble because I immediately fell back and a gap opened up. I tried to close it but my legs just wouldn't move fast. A couple of girls became even with me and I tried to push it. It just wasn't there. The entire lap was like this, my coach knew I was getting slower and he was yelling at me to move up. I was trying so hard but it wasn't working.

The last lap was not good. My racing tactic of a fast lap was gone, all I wanted to do was finish the race. I tried my hardest because I knew that it wasn't going well. I was running as fast as I could but my legs were heavy. With 200m to go, my coach told me to catch some girls that had moved ahead of me so I could score, not like he cares about that anyways. I tried because I didn't want to disappoint him but it wasn't there. With 100m left, all I could do was hope nobody was behind me because I had no more energy.

I crossed the line as someone was saying 5:17, 5:18. I had only cut a second off my time. I'm not sure what place I came in but it didn't really matter. AK came in about 20 seconds after me but that didn't matter either. I felt terrible, not only because I had only improved by a second, been passed by a couple of people, and used bad racing techniques, but I didn't do what my coach told me to do. I had disappointed myself and him, and I'm not sure which was worse.

We ran two laps as a cooldown as my coach watched us from the fence. He made no attempt to talk to us, and judging by my previous experiences with him, he was in a bad mood. I gave him chances to talk to me but I left for home with my dad without talking to my coach. I knew I had disappointed him and I felt bad, my legs had been so tired but I had tried my hardest.

Yesterday, I had an arguement with my mom about whether or not I should go to practice. I had arrived home at 11:00 the night before, had a lot of homework, and was very tired. After a compromise, I agreed to skip practice and make up my Spanish test that I had missed. I felt bad for missing practice, although I realized I needed to. This meant that I had to talk to my coach before school.

I really don't like talking to my coach outside of practices and meets because he sometimes scares me. I was nervous going into his room because all I could think about was the meet the day before. How he reacted though, was different that what I expected. He was in a good mood and told me that I had done a good job at the meet. My coach also compared me to the legend of distance running at my school, which is a huge compliment. He said that I had done a great job running over the winter and that I was the one who improved. That I had done all the hard work and that he was only guiding me along at practices.

This meant so much to me because I knew he meant every word. He doesn't give fake compliments or many compliments at all. I'm not sure how he felt about the meet after I had ran but I think he realized that I was tired and had given it my all. I'm not happy with the meet though, and I want to improve on those results.

1500- 5:18

This was surprising because I thought I was going a lot slower, but I guess I wasn't. It's a PR but it wasn't fun.