XC RACE REPORT: JUST RUN. DON'T FALL.

In honor of Jens Voigt, I gave a tribute at my cross country meet. It is his 38th birthday afterall (although I did think it was the 19th until I double checked) but apparently my body knew it and felt it had to honor him in some way. I didn't have an epic run, I didn't break 16, I didn't feel amazing, although I might've had my mask of pain on. There are so many ways that I could've honored him in my race so I could've chose a different one. But I didn't. Instead, I fell. As in faceplant on the ground. During my race. It wasn't as bad as Jens' crash in the Tour this year, but it was incredibly embarrassing.

We left for the meet 15 minutes late, at 2:45 because two stupid freshmen forgot to leave early. I'm not sure how, because I always glanced at the clock every five minutes until I could leave. I had to make sure to eat a lot on the hour bus ride because I did not want to get hungry. I ate granola bars and did math homework until we arrived. To find that the tree we usually camped by had been cut down and that they didn't have free colorful shoelaces.


My teammates and I cheered everyone on until it was time to warmup. One of our fresh/soph girls won her race which is awesome and puts her back on varsity, which should make her feel good. JS and I warmed up separately because everyone had left while we were waiting in line for the portapotties (the other bathrooms had no doors, who makes girl's restrooms with no doors? the answer would probably have to be guys). It was pretty warm out, in the 70's and sunny. My legs were feeling okay but not great. I kept telling myself to just run though because it's been kind of a hectic week. I didn't run on Monday because I spent the day on a visit to Iowa State. My legs weren't feeling the best on the two days before this meet either. I wanted to ignore that though. I wanted to block everything else out and just run.


We were in the inside box at the starting line. Our team seems to get the end boxes a lot, so it doesn't bother me that much. I tried to get out fast at the start, which is something I've been working on, so I was towards the front. My legs were feeling okay, nothing special was in them. I really wanted to beat 16 though so I kept telling myself to fight every single step. My first mile was in 6:08. Before we get to the first mile mark, we run around a small pond and every year there's people playing music on the drums when we run by. It makes the course a little more fun. The course had been changed a little, so about halfway through we didn't make the extra loop that I thought we did. This threw me off a little but it made it seem shorter. I then ran through a really small, short ditch that made me incredibly tired. I was only halfway through but there was something about that ditch that my legs didn't like. I was slowing down a little bit but I continued to fight.

About 100m later, we ran right next to a row of trees. They were full grown trees with large roots that went onto the course. I was running on the left side, closest to the trees, when I gracefully tripped over a tree root and fell on my face. It seemed to happen really quickly, like all of a sudden I was on the ground. I remember saying something like "oh crap" and then getting back up, hoping nobody from my school saw me, because it was very embarrassing. I had been running ahead of a few girls and they were beside me when I got up. There was about four or five of them and most of them said something to me like "good job" or "keep going" or something. I sprinted ahead, while looking for people from my school and hoping that they didn't see what I had just done. I felt like a total idiot. I was just really surprised because I went down and got up so quickly. I certainly didn't expect to do a faceplant during my race.

I was trying to assess my injuries while catching up to the girls that I had been running with. My palms stung and so did my elbows. My right hip and knee hurt where I had landed on them. I was hoping that I was bleeding anywhere so no one would notice that I had fallen. I didn't want to look though, because that might have discouraged me. My thoughts weren't even on finishing the race anymore, all I could think about was how I had fallen.

I knew that I was going a lot slower towards the end but my legs just didn't have the extra bit of something special. I'm not sure what it was, but I just didn't feel it. I crossed the little ditch for the second time and it exhausted me. I had about a half mile to go and I knew I had to do something. I just kept telling myself to fight every single step, which is what I didn't do at our Saturday meet. My teammates were catching up behind me and my legs were getting tired but I fought every step. And I didn't fall when I went by the trees the second time.

The finish line was downhill and I didn't let anyone pass me. I finished in 16:29, which isn't that good. I can't blame it all on my fall either, because my legs were tired and not feeling it during the race. I finished in 25th place but my teammates were only seconds behind. I congratulated AK and one of the freshman who had finished near me. Another of the freshman was upset because people had passed her in the chute and she didn't know what to do about it. I tried to calm her down while talking with some of my teammates and making sure they hadn't seen me fall. They made me feel a little better while I was waiting for JS to finish. She was the last person on varsity to come and she took off for camp right afterwards. I knew that she was going to cooldown by herself because she was upset so I talked to a few of my other teammates. One of them couldn't stop laughing when I told her that I had tripped but then we all started laughing about it once they kept telling me it was because I was running so fast. I did come to the conclusion though, that none of my teammates, my coach, or my dad had seen me fall. This made me feel a little better but I was kind of upset about my time. I left my mark on the course though, which I had been trying to do.

AK and I began cooling down together. We talked about the race and then we talked about JS. I had just realized that she had ran the 8th fastest time on our team which meant she might not get to run varsity at the next meet. My coach really likes her though and as AK said, it would crush her. And that was when we walked up a hill and saw her sitting by herself on the ground with her arms around her knees and her head down. We stopped for a second and I looked at her, and the course under the setting sun, and the other people cooling down in the distance. It made me feel so sad. This is the part of cross country, of any sport, that you don't see. Where everything doesn't work out. And which some people will never understand.

AK and I began to walk again, trying to figure out what to do. We didn't think she had seen us so we could just keep walking. We had walked past her down the hill where we were getting close to our other teammates, when I turned around and walked back up the hill to sit next to JS. At that moment, I had to stop being her teammate and start being her friend. I knew that I would have wanted someone beside me. AK and I sat next to her for awhile, not saying anything because we didn't know what to say. JS finally told us that she was going to go walk by herself so we went back to camp. We got our subway and got back on the bus for the ride home. AK and I sat in the back and we had a lot of fun talking with some of our teammates. We seemed to talk about everything except the race.

I'm not sure what to think about this race. My legs felt like they were missing something and then I gracefully fell on my face. My right knee has some scrapes on it, and my left knee and right arm have some bruises. I kind of like my battle wounds in a way. They remind me of the time during spring break, earlier this year, when I scraped up my right leg when I tripped while running by myself. They're just another part of running. What worried me a little more was my legs. They were just missing something. My attitude during the race did become a lot better, in the way I kept fighting. This race was certainly a different one though and it leaves me a another goal. To not fall.