Hey flrunners! Hope you all are having a great week. My teammates and I did the Mountain Dew Invitational this past Satuday (and so did 71 other girls teams and 68 other boys teams. Crazy! I was so pumped to do this race. I ran my first ever cross country race at UF in 7th grade and it's where I fell in love with running. Also, it was my mom's birthday and I wanted to perform well for her since she came all the way to watch me on her birthday.
Congrats to everyone who participated, especially Julie Wollrath and Tyler Bennett for winning.
It was an interesting adventure to say the least for Shorecrest.
First off, our girls varsity team was missing our #2 runner and #7 (due to Yom Kippur) and our #5 due to soccer. This was rough on our team, but we brought two junior varsity girls (Kaya and Karli) up to run and they PR'ed by over three minutes, running 23 somethings. I was so impressed and proud of them.
Next, our bus had a tire blow out on the way to the meet. Some lucky girls, like myself, weren't on the bus, and still made it to the meet. However, our entire boys varsity team was on the bus. The boys missed the varsity race so they ran junior varsity race. After the bus tire got fixed (and they moved some kids to the school's other bus- fitting like four kids per seat), our team got stuck in the horrible traffic jam because of the overturned 18 wheeler on I-75. The bus arrived to UF at like 9:05.
Our girls team lined up among 71 other teams to race. The gun went off, and there was surprisingly only one false start. The race was underway and I was feeling good for the first 800 meters. A lead pack formed but I couldn't quite get to the top of it. I ran a 5:35 first mile, and was toward the front. Everyone looked really strong.
We looped around and climbed some big hills. I know I should be able to go through the race play by play but honestly I don't remember it. I was not feeling well and I was pretty out of it. I do ,however, remember wanting to drop out and faint midway through the race, but I couldn't give up, and let my team down.
I finished, collapsed, and my mom dragged me off. Then, I was in the cool water bathe and I still was out of it. I was still feeling very weak, my muscles were shaky, and I couldn't stand up on my own. My dad is the best dad ever (and pretty strong) so he gave me a piggy back ride up the hill to our team's home base. I drank a Gatorade and sat still for like 45 minutes and then I finally felt like I wasn't about to die.
I thought about how I felt and tried to figure out what went wrong. I then realized that I only ate half of a high protein bar, that had almost no simple carbs or sugar. I had heard somewhere that spiking your blood sugar pre-race was bad, so I guess that's why I tried not to, but it ended very badly.
I wasn't thrilled with myself post-race, but it happens. I can make mistakes and mess up, but it's one race and I learned a great lesson. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm going back to my sugar filled Cheerios and granola bar pre-race.
Next week my team is going to Jim Ryun Invite. We can't wait to run against some more great competition. Happy running!
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