Jonathan,
Thanks, the race this weekend was awesome. It had to be the hardest race I've run
up to date, it was killer. I ran a 5 mile road race a few weeks ago and won with a
25:15, so to go out and run 24:09 was insane, way faster than I expected to run.
The trip went well. The weather race morning was in the low 20's, some of the
coldest weather I've raced in. I felt pretty good race morning, did my usual
breakfast before heading out to the course. We got to the course about 2 hours
before race time. While everyone else ran for the heated tents right after getting
off the bus, my father and I walked the course, I think this really helped me later,
cause I was ready for the cold, I got used to the wind, and got a feel for the
course, which was frozen solid.
I had a great warm up, felt really good just striding along, running the course,
loosening up my legs. Before the race I rubbed down in Vaseline to help stay warm,
lol, didn't work too well for some parts, but that's another story. Pretty much the
race tactic was to destroy everyone else's race tactics. I didn't want to cruise
for 4 miles and sprint the last one, which I believe a lot of the runners wanted to
do. I went out hard and took the lead from the start, pushing the pace, I lead the
first lap (2k laps, 4 laps), and was felling pretty good, though you wouldn't be
able to tell from the pictures. Around the end of the 4th K two or three guys
pulled up and tried to pass, then some coach told them good job and to slow it down
and relax, the guys in front actually dropped the pace, but I wasn't about to let
that happen, I didn't think we had pulled away from the rest of the pack yet, so I
put on another surge and pulled them all along with me. I believe we went through
the 5k at about 15:15, but by then I was sitting in sixth. The last 2k lap was me
and Landon Peacock fighting back and forth for 6th place. With 400m to go Landon
passed me and pulled me up to the 5th place runner. Once we reached the next
runner, that guy surged, I followed and Landon faded. I sprinted like crazy, knowing
I was in 6th and not sure how far back Landon was. Well I finished about two steps
from 5th place and qualified for the US team heading for Japan March 26th - April
3rd. My race will be on April 2nd.
The race was so much fun, competition like that is always fun to run with, even if I
don't win. Knowing that two years ago Macpherson, Bumbalough, and Barnicle were all
killing me and now I'm less that 15 seconds behind them in my first real 8k, that
was an amazing feeling.
Also, getting another chance to race against AJ Acosta was really nice, I felt my
race out in San Diego at the Footlocker Nationals wasn't to my fullest potential,
and was hoping to get another chance to race him in a cross country meet.
And finally the idea of getting to represent my country in Japan is going to be my
favorite experience I think, I've always talked about the Olympics, and this is
definitely taking me a step closer to that dream. I can't wait to get to Japan and
race against some of the best in the world, it will be an experience I'll never
forget.
-Michael