States

Last Saturday was States: my last track meet of the year.

The meet was in Mount Dessert Island and we had to be there around 8:30am... so the bus had to leave at 5:30am, and us athletes had to be at the bus by 5:15am. So to shower, get a good breakfast and finish getting ready I had to get up at 4:15am. I got up at 4:20am, showered and while still in zombie mode made some oatmeal, toast and my drinks for the day. I took my oatmeal out of the microwave and bumped the bowl against the handle of the fridge... guess what happened next? Oatmeal all over the floor. Yeah, big bummer, had to wash thar up, then make another bowl. So from then on I was rushed to get things and eat. Shannon woke up around 4:55am to bring me to the bus. We left just after 5am and got there around 5:20am. Most of the team was really tired and goofy because of the tiredness, so it made for a pretty fun and funny bus ride. Also, there was less than 15 people on the bus, so everyone had their own seat and extra seats for bags. I took a 15-30 minute nap, but that's it. Most of the time I just talked with my team. The bus ride was over 3 hours. I don't remember how long it was exactly, but it was long.

Once we got into the middle of nowhere, the signs were pretty fun to read. Really randomly named stores...

We arrived around 8:40am. I was in the first event which started at 10:30am for guys, so I had a little bit of time to just relax, use the restroom, eat a little and wake myself up. My event was the 4x800. Our team was pretty slow. I was the fastest on the whole track team at the 800, but I didn't even qualify for the 800 this year in KVACs, let alone States. Our 4x800 teams PR this year was 10:04.16. I wasn't on the 4x800 team this year because I had other events I wanted to do, so I replaced one of the slowest guys on the 4x800 team. Coach knew I had the fastest time, so she put me as anchor: the last guy. I was pretty nervous, because at KVACs our anchor ran by himself because all the other teams finished when he started. Luckily, we were put in the slow heat, so it wouldn't be as bad.

We started off in 7th or 8th. I think we briefly hit 6th, but fell back to 7th or 8th during most of the event. It was pretty windy, so a good strategy was to tuck in behind someone and let them take the wind while you trail them and beat them in the last 100-200 meters. When I received the baton there was a guy around 50 meters behind me and a guy 50 meters in front of me. Tucking in was going go to be a problem... So I decided: I need to catch the guy in front of me. 50 meters, not bad, right? Wrong. It was 800 meters, so he had to fun 750, I had to run 800 to catch him. He was running a pretty good pace, probably a 2:20 pace. My PR this year was a 2:15.xx... So I had to run pretty fast to catch him. So I gave it my all. First lap, I closed down the gap by at least 25 meters. This my friend, is where pain sets in. Have you ever tired to nearly sprint 1/2 a mile? It's tough... but I really, really wanted to beat that guy. We reached the 200m left mark. My lunges are in fire. I hamstrings are on the brink on giving into charley-horsing. My quads start numbing. My form was failing. Then I remembered: pump your arms harder, and your legs will follow suit. I did just that... just too early. I did it at the 120m mark, the edge of the turn: right where the wind was the strongest. That was my mistake. I hit the wind, along with the dreaded wall. I couldn't slow down. I had to beat that guy, I was less than a meter behind! I was pumping my arms as fast as I could, which probably was actually quite slow, but I kept with it. My mistake was getting to me now. My energy was failing me, even my biceps and shoulders were getting that numb feeling. My form probably looked like a baby giraffe, but I couldn't do anything about it. 50 meters left: I pass him, but he has more power left. I'm still pumping, feeling like death. I then see in the corner if my eye: his spikes, his knee, then most of his body. I literally, couldn't move any faster and he beat me, by less than a meter. We both nearly fell over. Then shook hands congratulating one another on each others races.

That was probably one of the closest 800 meters runs I've run. I put so much energy into it. I could barely walk afterward. I just sat for a while, then walked slowly down to our tent. I had to eat and drink slowly because I felt like throwing up. My hamstrings were now charley-horsing, and in a ton of pain. Nothing pulled, just extreme use. Brandon gave mr some BioFreeze. I never tired something like it before, but apparently it's like IcyHot. Not sure how it works, but after rubbing some of it on my hamstrings. It felt amazing, but weird. It really loosened up my legs. Don't ask me how, but it was amazing.

Coach came over to talk to us a little while later. She gave us our times, all but one of us PRed! I ran a 2:11.87! My lifetime PR was 2:13.xx! Guess the urge beat a guy 50 meters in front of me really helped my time. I was pretty happy with that. Also, our team's overall time was 9:38.98! That's a 25.18 second PR I believe! I looked at the time and the guy who beat me beat me by 0.43 seconds. That's pretty darn close for a 4x800 meter race!

My next event was was the 4x100. So I had some time to recover, relax and eat. I wasn't 100% for the 4x100, but I don't think I could have been 100% for awhile after running that 4x800. My start went well. I was in lane 4, passed two guys, but my hand off was bad. The guy I handed off to was going too slow, and I missed his hand, luckily because he was going too slow I had time to put the baton in his hand, but by this time we lost the lead I made.

That race didn't go so well. We placed pretty poorly, and our time was barely faster than the fastest 400meter runner.

I had even more time until the 4x400. So I just hung out with my team, relaxed, ate some and drank a lot.

Jordan is our fastest 400 meter runner. He placed 3rd at States with a time of 51.85. He was already doing 4 events, so he couldn't do the 4x400. I was the next fastest with a PR of 55.95. Brandon was the next fastest with a time around 57 seconds... He ran the 200m dash, and then his hamstring that was hurting earlier this year started hurting again, so he didn't want to risk re-pulling his hamstring, and so couldn't do the 4x400 either. Ben was our next guy. He didn't have any problems, so he could run it. The only problem was thar his time was around 58 seconds. Isaiah ran it as well, his time is around 59 or 60, which isn't that fast for guys, but ok. Also, Brent was our next guy on the list. His PR was a 1:06. I started it off... I was the fastest on our relay team, but I only held 7th out of 8. We fell to last pretty quickly. That was a pretty humbling race.

After the meet we packed up and the bus left. I was going with my parents, so I waited around because they went to the wrong bus, because our bus moved.

We drove for a couple hours, stopped at the Hughes for a short visit. Then went off to Bath to pick Colleen up at Anna's house. Closed my eyes and relaxed, couldn't quite sleep, the car was too cramped for that. We got home a little before 11pm. I showered and slept. I fell asleep so fast... I woke up after 8am, so I kind of had to rush to make break fast and shower before church. We left a tad late.

On our way we saw that our steams were over flowing. They were a couple inches over the road. A road we usually take to church was blocked off because the tar was destroyed from the water. So we were pretty late.

After church we headed home. It was still pouring. We drove threw a few newly formed steams... then an older steam was over the road for about 30 feet, and was pretty deep. We didn't dare cross that one, so we took another detour to get to our house.

After a few hours we went to Leavitt's graduation. That was pretty cool, but really long. I saw quite a few of my friends graduate though! It was another pretty adventurous ride on the way home.

So this brings me to today. It's still raining, but no where near as bad. There probably is still quite a few blocked off roads due to damage, but probably only a few or no over flowing streams.