View Workout (Chris Kelly)

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Last UAA for Cross

October 27, 2012 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: Perfect day to run. Overcast, 50's no wind, little soggy course but not noticible

Comments:
The night before I kinda thought over that this was my last conference. I went over my goals and the race plan. We had a great meeting with everyone feeding off each other. People were ready to go. Knew we could put it together.

Slept pretty good. Had to pee a bunch. Kinda slow getting out of bed. Went down to breakfast with Ethan. Had a pretty quality meal. Felt like I fueled up good. Went back to the room and relived my childhood TV dreams by watching Arthur and Clifford until we went to the bus. Short drive over to the course.

We were one of the first teams to get there. Staked out a claim in a pavilion for all our stuff. I was kinda cold sitting there so I went and sat on the bus where it was warmer. Came off when it was time to warm up. Warmup was just loops. Did 2 then stopped to stretch and stuff a bit. Ran a bit more after. Grabbed my stuff and went over to the line. Ended up being pretty warm on the warmup.

Spiked up and did a few strides. Got together for the last pre race huddle. Coach told us to get out hard. Was fairly nervous then but still relaxed since I was yawning. Didn't feel a ton of pressure just jitters.

Race went off faster than I expected. Kinda quick transition from set to go. Since we were in box 3 (inside of the line in regards to the first turn onto the loop) I tried to get farther to the outside. This was easier than I thought, probably because Wash U and NYU chilled right out of the gate. It was pretty much 3 Chicago guys up front lead by Bill followed by Gates and Newby with me working in with them. Kinda settled in there. Seeing that I was in front of NYU and Wash U got me a little nervous early, but then I realized I needed to just trust the race plan and run my race. Knew David was close with me for the early portions of the race.

The race kinda settled for the first lap to lap and a half. Kinda just chilled in the lead pack. Tried to stay in my rhythm. People moved to the front but no one really put in a surge or tried to break the race open for the first 2 miles. Just past the 2 mile mark Hamm and Sparks from Wash U moved to the front and that's when the race broke open I saw them move and NYU moved with them. I felt like at that point I did a good job covering the move. I knew that was the race right there. That was the move I needed to be with if I wanted to accomplish my goals. I'm glad I have learned enough in my years to recognize that. Felt decent until we rounded the corner and went up the courses only hill. Felt like I gave up too much there and a lot of people passed me.

Thankfully it was a short hill and I was able to battle back from there. The rest of the race was really a fight to maintain and hold on to position. Pretty much felt like I was in 10th the entire rest of the race. Bonilla was in front of me. He was my target from looking at the results from Oberlin, and the plan was to stick with him and beat him at the end. I knew I had to stick with him. When we hit the hill again on the third lap I again gave up too much ground, and I spent the whole lap battling back up to where I was before. As we passed the finish with a lap to go I felt like I was in good position. At that point I recognized that a gap had opened between me and 11th place. I was hanging onto the lead pack and everyone else that had fallen off of us was back a fair amount of distance.

Going into the final 2k I felt like I had a chance still to move up and pass some people. I fought for a bit but I really feel I need to run this portion of the race better. We talk about not limiting yourself with your goals and I feel like I did that here. My goal was to get top 10 and I knew I was in 10th with a fairly large gap back to 11th. I had thoughts of just hanging in there till the end and not blowing up so I would get my goal. I really feel that if I would have not had these thoughts I would have been able to push better the final 2k and pass some people. Looking at results I feel like 7th place would have been reachable. It was only 6 seconds ahead. Then there's a gap to 6th. Felt like I should have been there. Gotta work on the finish better. Knew it when I crossed the line.

Got done and watched the others come in. What a race from David! Again he swoops in and runs awesome and consistent, I'm sure once Ethan gets his foot sorted out he'll be back right with us. Rest of the team came in strong. Tony was right there. Great run from him. He continues to improve with every race. Our pack wasn't as tight as it was at Oberlin but we learned about going out hard. And now we know what were gonna do come regionals. I feel that although not everyone was ecstatic with their race everyone learned something and has the right mindset going into regionals in 2 weeks which is the biggest key for us.

Started cooling down almost immediately after getting clothes back on. Watched the girls battle while jogging for most of it. Hopefully I was in enough places. While jogging Coach came by and said we beat U of R and got 5th! Never been so happy with a 5th place performance in my life. Don't know how I feel about that to be honest. That's not even top half. But for the first time since I've been here we accomplished our team goal for conference that we set at the beginning of the season, and I think that's something that is worth mentioning. I want us to be held accountable for our goals. I feel like this year we're doing that which was good. Also we didn't really have that good of a day. I don't know how much longer we can say this as an out that we can run better as they're aren't many meets left for us to give our best.

But on the bright side we beat a ranked team which was good. It was our goal. I don't know if this was a function of us actually being a better team than U of R or them just kinda running bad but a win is a win I guess. But against teams we raced at Oberlin we didn't that much closer. In a smaller race we actually finished further behind CMU than Oberlin. We did get closer to NYU though which is nice.

Gotta put all that out of my head now I guess going to regionals on the 10th. It's gonna be a dog fight to make it. Mount killed ONU at their conference meet. Gotta watch out for them. Just gotta really fight out there. There's a little more left to be done but pretty much its all about focusing up for regionals.

Stretching got thrown off by the shower. Coach wasn't too happy. Kinda stretched after.