So, anyhow, this year was my second year with my favorite team ever--the FEAST Homeschool Patriots!! I seriously love this team, and all the fun that I've had this season stretching myself to try new things and set crazy goals. The coaches are amaZing, and the team is very encouraging. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. :)
This season, I returned to the track after a harrowing experience with cross-country (yet I'm going to do it again this fall? I don't understand myself sometimes...) ready to all-out sprint! My favorite race is the 200 meter dash.
I. love. this. race.
The 100 meter dash is too short--it's over before you have time to think about passing anyone who might be dying out (who dies out on the 100m anyways?). The 400 meter dash is too long to be an all-the-way, never-slowing-down sprint (okay, well, maybe I'm just too lazy to train for it...)
So. I found MY RACE.
The first race of the season, in February, I was extremely disappointed. I had gone out of last season running a 30.57--nothing too impressive, but then again, I couldn't seem to break the 30-second barrier. :/
My first race of the season? A 31 second race. I was crestfallen. I hadn't run it well, rather, I was actually trying to "pace" myself--a bad habit picked up from none other than--xc. (Gotta love long distance!! Grrr...)
Suddenly, during practices, I became determined. I no longer sludged through the sprinting reps like it was a chore to finish. I ran hard, fire in my eyes, fighting through the wind, clawing at the track, being a passionate fanatic with only one goal in mind: to break 30 seconds and never, ever return into the realm of the 30's.
My next race, I tore out of the blocks like a wildebeest and shut my eyes until I was around the curve, going so fast I thought I must be flying. I knew I looked utterly ridiculous, but who cared? I won my heat, and with it the coveted 29.9 second time.
The season progressed, and I consistently ran 29-second races, each time slowly inching down the milliseconds until I was on the brink of breaking 29, right at the end of the season. At that point, I was absolutely in love with the race.
No matter how much it hurt, how shaky I would get beforehand, and how dead I would feel afterwards, I felt as if I had found the. BEST. event. in. track: 200 meters.
Oh YES! :D
So, here comes the homeschool state track meet--my favorite meet (and the final meet) of the year. As I got in the blocks, I felt, well, a little sad. This was it. This was what I had prepared for all season (the 200!!), and now I was on my final race for my junior year.
Needless to say, I was slightly brokenhearted. Slightly is an understatement. As I spent those last few nerve wracking moments waiting for the starter's gun to go off, I whispered my silent prayer, "God, give me strength, speed, and endurance. Keep everyone in my heat safe from injury..." I bit my lip, wondering if I should even dare to hope, "...and it would be totally cool if I could break into the 28's."
But nothing big, I thought to myself, as the starter said, "Runners set--," After all, I already reached my goal for the season. So I don't need to hope for anything that reckless like a 28-second 200 meter dash.
And then the gun went off, and it was wonderful and exhilarating and terrible and beautiful and I, quite frankly, don't remember any of it.
But my time, leaving the season, was 28.54.
It was totally cool. God is good! :)
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