Since Monday, almost nothing had gone right. All my friends were moving up ability groups in xc, and I wasn't. The SAT was in less than two weeks and I still didn't feel adequately prepared. I had a growing mound of letters and emails (including important applications) to respond to--and I was procrastinating, of course. Geometry was driving me up the wall...how to find the lateral area of a cylindrical prism?! (Why should I even care?) On top of that, I had lost two whole nights of sleep due to general senior anxiety and the absence of chocolate.
Needless to say, up until Saturday morning, I was having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week...which is quite unusual for me, thus distressing me more, thus causing me to lose more sleep thus making me more tired during the day, thus throwing off my concentration on the endless amount of tasks at hand--and you get the picture.
Not a very pretty one, either. Thus.
And then it happened...I woke up early (think five-thirty a.m.) on Saturday after a refreshing night's sleep. I don't normally wake up that early--but today was special! [Cue the cliche music in the background]
Today was...my cross-country home meet at Fort Sam Houston (being as I don't actually have a "school" it can be hosted at). I showered to wake myself up, ate a well-balanced breakfast of peanut-butter-and-honey toast and a rather plumpish banana with a tall glass of water and then got picked up by my best friend Christina van Rheeden!
We got their kind of early, but just on time to see our other best friend--Ernestina--pulling up with her family and...Danielle!!! <--our even other-er best friend. Please excuse the improper grammar. ;) Danielle doesn't run xc, so seeing her was a huge major treat!
I hadn't gone maybe thirty yards toward the team tent when I was pummeled by my other runner friends. There was a lot of laughing and talking and hugging and...so far, so good! The day was looking up!
...but then it was race time.
The race was run in flight-score fashion, meaning...well it's kind of hard to explain but you basically take all the runners who would have run in a big clump and separate them into five (or seven) different groups who each start the course five minutes after the previous group.
So I was running with about twenty girls--which could be good or bad depending on how you looked at it. With less people you could avoid getting boxed in, but if you were in the back it would be kind of obvious. Quite frankly, I was pretty nervous.
But then the starting gun went off and the race started and I didn't feel nervous at all! Instead, I felt a surge of power which brought me to the middle of the pack, so I went with it, trying to catch the girl in front of me while avoiding being passed from behind.
At the mile mark, a coach called out my split. 6:56. What? I thought. That can't be right...I've never run my first mile that fast!
Still, the first mile had gone by fairly quickly, so I mentally accepted the time and plowed through the last mile while jumping over horse hurdles, horizontal logs, hay bales, and an artificial hill--all the while unsuccessfully willing myself not to vomit. So much for that one...
And then there was only 300 meters left and three girls within sight. I'm going to catch the two right in front, I thought. I don't know about the third one, but...I'm gonna try!
I quickened my stride and hopped ungracefully over the final haybale and pounded past the two girls. Now there was only the blue jersey in front of me and about 150 meters until the finish line.
My stomach lurched nauseously, and I was faced with an unpleasant choice. Stumble in at my current pace or sprint ahead and face the inevitable...and I chose the second one.
Within twenty meters of my all-out sprint I passed the girl, and only gained momentum as I propelled through the finish line. My teammates were cheering wildly, the muscles in my legs were burning, and my insides were churning precariously...but none of this mattered. I felt like some sort of slow-motion Olympian at the end of a marathon--all I needed was the cool music. :)
And then I crossed the finish line, staggered through the chute and proceeded to make it about twenty feet before puking behind a tree. All I can say is, no one came up to congratulate me right then. ;)
It was like the end of every other race--I was a pitiful, slobbery mess (haha nice mental picture, right?) that looked like she'd tackled a bear, and quite frankly, lost. My eyes were teary from exertion, I was doubled over in misery, and my ponytail was pinwheeling in seven different directions.
But I felt absolutely, indescribably joyful. 14:21. My best two-mile race to date. And I know...the time is pretty pathetic for a senior, but I felt like screaming and skipping and throwing flowers.
I did a happy dance. :D
The day went uphill from there! I got myself the lime green souvenir shirt and wore it all day while I handed out water to other athletes during their races, wore an orange vest while I course-marshalled (is that a word?), and kept runners in line within the finish chute.
My crazy sidekick Hannah and I found a dollar on the ground, and after surveying the nearby area for anyone it might belong to, proceeded to spend it on a brownie and this liquid applesauce stuff for our friend Destiny. :) Also, I found a pen, that sort of wrote, when you kind of shook it around a bit.
And then there was socializing (homeschoolers do it the best!) and haybale pictures and a sunburn and a hotdog on the way home...
Dad: "How can you like hotdogs after you run?"
Me: "Nothing makes me crave hotdogs more than running!"
Me: "Nothing makes me crave hotdogs more than running!"
Yeah, I don't know either. But hotdogs and running go together like salt and pepper. Except definitely eat the hotdog AFTER you run. I learned that lesson the hard way. (;
So that wonderful, fantastic, very-good, amazing day turned my entire week around!
“Every day is a good day, some are just a little better than others” - Jeff Garthwaite
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