Putting it all on the line

It was a cool, and clean Saturday morning at the trinity river alongside Ft. Worth City. The high school team has been preparing for the past few weeks for the upcoming race to the Lubbock Invitational, and there was only one spot left waiting for either me or the other two varsity runners. Even though I was JV my times were right up there with the other two even though I was trailing by 3-5 seconds every race before the Ft. Invitational at the Trinity river.

As the clouds rolled in blocking the sun and the wind kicked up... creating a perfect flow unable to hold anyone back for a great race. I was pumped and felt amazing but when the horn went off and I made my way to the front group a weird feeling overtook me. My legs felt like jello and I thought that this was it. This was the race that would stop me from reaching Lubbock.

Little did I know that as I was making my way up and down each hill I was catching up to the varsity runner who was running the JV race. It was at the two mile marker where I passed the varsity runner and made my way to the finish of the 5k.

Nearing the final 800 the varsity runner caught up and passed me. At that moment it was fair game for the last spot. As me and him made our way to the final 400 stretch my teammate wobbled a bit around the turn. I took that as a moment to attack. Giving it my all I sprinted faster than anyone at that race passing the varsity runner along with 4 other people allowing me to place 8th winning my first cross country medal and getting a good enough time to go to Lubbock.

This is my perfect race, and it gave me the confidence to run with varsity during practice for the rest of the year. The district race is tomorrow, and I am running JV again. I plan on getting 1st but anything can happen. Hopefully I can prove myself yet again that I can do it.