10/3/09

The trip to Oklahoma...

It was 5:45 when I drug my bag out into the street to wait for coach Jen to pick me up. As I closed the door to my house I felt strange leaving without Julianne, my roommate and teammate. This was the first cross country trip (not counting unattached trips as a freshmen) I had ever gone on without her. I remembered leaving early for regionals last year and how we had sat up late taking about how excited we were, talking about how good our team could be- was going to be. This time there was a different feeling. Not just because Julianne is redshirting, but because we had 4 new girls with us, a whole different team dynamic and the jokes we made last year no longer meant anything. I thought about the development of new jokes and team bonding as I hopped in Coach Jen’s car. As I closed the door to the freezing, crisp air, the heater melted my thoughts away.

I climbed into the van and tried to situate my stuff under the seat. My bag was packed so full that I couldn’t get it under the seat and it frustrated me. Sophie, a recently un-redshirted freshmen and my current van seat partner suggested stacking our bags and other’s bags to make the seat more comfortable for sleeping. I had the window seat, and with two bags stacked right in front of my on the floor I could curl up in the fetal position with my heads on the bags and my body on the seat. Sophie had her bags stacked in the aisle so that her head rested on them and her legs curled up right next to mine. Our nest was awesome and we quickly fell asleep, as did the other 6 girls travelling in our van. We were off!

We woke up a while later at a gas station in Salida. No one wanted to get out of the van but we decided it was in our best interest to go pee before we continued driving for a few more hours. We all piled into the gas station bathroom and took turns in the stalls. Glancing at myself in the mirror I had to say to Hillory that I looked a little rough around the edges. “Ya, we don’t look very attractive.” Hillory said and made a gagging noise at her reflection. When we got back in the van we passed around the orange juice, bagels and cream cheese, gobbling up all the food and then falling back asleep as soon as it was gone. I think we slept longer than we were awake this entire trip.

By the time we got to Kansas my knees were aching so badly it felt like they were going to shoot through my femurs. My clothes smelt of subway (where we had gotten lunch) and my hair felt like a rat’s nest. I was uncomfortable but ready to get out of the van and run as we pulled up to the Garden City Community College. The Garden City team graciously offered to take us out for a run on our drive through and their coach was super excited for us to be there. They drove us out to some dirt roads surrounded by corn fields, that at first glance looked pretty nice for an easy jaunt straight outta the vans. Once we started running the winds pushing against us felt like a billion pounds and what started out as an easy run turned into more of a fartlek. Running out in those corn fields made us all realize how lucky we are to have our running trails behind the school and the beautiful trails of Crested Butte so close.

After the run, we drove back to the community college to use their showers before we resumed our trip. The ladies and I piled into the locker room and stood their in awe at what we saw. The locker room was gigantic with carpet, a massive leather coach and a huge flat screen TV with a stereo system. “Oh my gosh I want to live here,” Hillory said and plopped down on the coach. Sarah followed her and opened up one of the arm rests to find cooler storage for drinks and food. Everyone was so excited that we forgot about showering for about fifteen minutes. Finally, after finding some awesome jams on the stereo, we took turns going into the shower. We were sad to leave the locker room after we had changed our outfits about ten times, but we took one last look and drug our bags down the hallway towards the boys waiting for us. Then, after a quick dinner we were back on the road!

I woke up to the van turning around, and the ladies around me sitting up to see what was going on. “Sorry ladies, we forgot Donnan,” Coach Jen said as she started back in the direction we just came from. WHAT! Everyone shrieked and talk began to elevate. Coach didn’t even tell us she was joking, but about five minutes later we all figured out that we had taken a wrong turn. I decided I was hungry and began searching for the jam and English muffins. Once located, I attempted to spread jam with a fork onto a crumbly English muffin in the dark. By the time I had my muffin prepared, my forearms and hands were covered in jam. In a sticky panic I searched frantically for something to wipe the jam off with. With no luck I started licking my arms and rubbing them together, in hopes that the stickiness would subside. Sophie sat up and looked at me like I was absolutely insane and then exclaimed “Wait!” She reached down by the door and brought up some napkins she had stowed away. Together we worked away at the stickiness, and I could finally eat my muffin which by this time had gotten by pants all sticky. What a disaster.. it was totally not worth it either.

Our van ride to Wichita was suppose to take 2 1/5 hours but instead took almost 4. In this time I succeeded in annoying Lauren by resting my legs on the seat in front of me, allowing my feet to dangle in her face. Then, when we finally got to Wichita coach Jen drove around for about 25 minutes looking for the Days Inn, which Grace and I had seen the second we got off the off ramp, but didn’t know we were looking for that particular hotel so didn’t say anything. Coach was not happy when we discovered that is what she was looking for and told her we had already seen in a half hour ago. The van was full of laughter and moans of discomfort from sitting for so long.

At Oklahoma State

The OSU course was like nothing we had ever seen before. I wish I could see a bird’s eye view because I still have no idea where we went. The preview run got us so pumped up that we decided to do our strides up the last hill. Looking around we saw that we were the only team doing our strides up a hill.. all the other teams chose to do them on the flat. I guess that’s what you get for being from Colorado! My legs didn’t feel good on the preview run, which worried me a little bit. I couldn’t imagine going any faster than I was at that moment-probably around 8 or 8:30 pace. I didn’t say anything to the girls, but I was really hoping my legs would feel better in the morning.

My alarm went off at 6:00 am, and the ladies and I stumbled down to breakfast where I ate my normal pre race snacks and watched while Hillory attempted to spread peanut butter on a piece of toast with a spoon. Basically anything Hillory does is funny, but it's even more hilarious when it's 6 in the morning. My legs still didn’t feel good so I grabbed my ipod and headed out for a ten minute shakeout. It was still dark so I decided to stay in the parking lots surrounding the hotel, which were lit up by a few gas stations and Braum’s ice cream parlor. John Mellencamp came on my ipod and I started to get pumped as I jogged around in circles, around the hotel. After some drills and a few strides I headed back inside, feeling excited but relaxed.

The Race

The eight of us got to our starting box with a minute to go and did our WSC cheer. Without even a chance to think, the gun shot and we were off, up the first hill. I got out pretty well and looked around me, startled not to see any of my teammates. Just then, Hillory came up on my right and we looked at each other. I reached over and gave her a smack on the behind, and then she was off. I was right behind her, trying to zig-zag through all of the people-through the 800, the 1k and up and over some wooden steps. When we got to the first hill I rolled down it with more speed than I expected, passing Hillory on the way back up. I figured she was right with me so I pressed it up the hill and around the corner. When we got to the first mile some man saying splits yelled out 5:40! Hillory was on my right side again and I could feel her picking it up. She pointed her finger down by her side as she floated by me and for a brief second I hesitated. Damn. She was steps ahead of me now, but I could still see her.

Just like practice I told myself and pushed on, hoping that Sarah was somewhere near by and the rest of the ladies not too far off as well. I can't even remember where we went next, but it involved hills and trees. The whole second mile was kind of a blur. However, I do remember the guy yelling 11:40 when I passed through. I was still a few feet back from Hillory, so I just focused on her backside, and tried to ignore the fact that I had picked up a couple wood chips on the ends of my spikes somewhere along the way. When I hit 4k, I knew I had to pick it up. “Just like practice. Lift your knees, pump your arms. You get to stop in under 4 minutes, you can do this” I told myself. I imagined finishing my workouts with Coach Lisa and Paul, and how much they yell at me in the last minute or so, telling me to focus on my form and breathing. My breathing at this moment felt fine, but my calves were screaming at me to stop. “200 meters to go!” A coach on the sideline yelled at one of his athletes. “Oh crap” I thought and started to kick, thinking that the last hill looked a lot smaller than the day before. As I crested the top I realized that it wasn’t in fact the last hill and I had just kicked the crap out of myself for nothing. Another 800 meters to go. Those last 800 meters felt like the longest I had ever run, and I attempted to kick for a second time, amazed that my legs actually made it to the finish line.

Phew. Done. I had no idea where I had placed but I could see Hillory a few people ahead of my in the shoot. I reached up and tapped her and we hugged for a second before being corralled around by the officials. Sarah and Cassie found us moments later and the four of us hugged in exhaustion. “Its amazing to breath!” I said and Cassie looked at me as if to say “Yep.” Grace was through the shoot next and we all stood around exchanging race experiences and wondering how we did in comparison to the other D2 schools.

Hillory and I agonized over the results for a good fifteen minutes before sucking it up and getting on with our lives. We had gotten 13th. Not great, but as a team we had improved on numerous things. I was especially irritated with my splits that didn’t seem to add up. “We need to work on our closing mile and getting out and staying out” we kept saying to each other. We had had a great trip, a fun time and a good race. We had run as hard as we could on Oct 3rd, but we are hungry for more. We are not settling and we believe that things will fall into place when it counts. With new goals on the horizon, we packed I up and headed back to Colorado.