Hey flunners! First off I would like to thank Todd Grasley for allowing me to share my meet experience with you this week! I would also like to congratulate everybody who earned a PR this past meet and I would also like to congratulate Sukhi Khosla on a new Pre-State course record with a14:59!
This past meet my team Sarasota Riverview and I went to the FSU Pre-State Invitational meet in Tallahassee, Florida. With some of the best teams in the state showing, my team and I competed in the Boys Elite race. Coming into the race our team was seeded 18th with a 16:42 team average and I was seeded 28th individually with a 16:00. Our team was aware of the revisions of the Appalachee course and knew that since the course was wider we could use the race tactic of starting off slower and working our way up the pack in the race. Our team finished 11th place with a 16:22 average. Individually I got 24th place with a 15:47 and a new PR.
After the race I found out our #2 and #3 runners had broken 16 minutes as well, this puts our top three the 2nd best top three in the state behind Belen Jesuit's top three. This meet was an awesome meet experience for me and gave me the opportunity to race with all the top runners and allowing me to find out how I am stacked up against the 4A boys such as Nick Diaz, Brandon Marquez, and Kurt Convey. I also got the opportunity to talk to some awesome runners such as Emily Edwards of Ft. Myers and Grace Casagrande of Cardinal Mooney who placed 2nd and 3rd respectively in the Girls Elite race!
In our Boys Elite race I was very nervous and have not really had a lot of experience racing with some of the top dogs, knowing last year I ran an 18:20 at Pre-States in the Bronze race! When the gun was shot I took off a tad fast and found myself in the front pack of the beginning sprint. While I was running through the first 400m I had found myself running side by side with Nick Diaz of Miami Sunset; I badly wanted to say hi and speak with him but I had a feeling it was kind of a bad time to do so. After the first straight away we took a left after heading up a small incline. Then we had entered the packed dirt, heading into the first mile I could see Tyler Bennett and Mac Macoy leading the pack and right before the mile marker I was running with my buddy Adam Bradtmueller of Sarasota High and then all of a sudden Sukhi Khosla had joined us. I looked at him for about 10 seconds realizing he was seeded first coming into the race and he was back here with us high-15 runners.... So I figured Sukhi liked to negative split in his races. Coming into the first mile I hit it around 4:46 and got a nice mile PR! (lets just say I was really slow last track season) and then the next 400m was an intense downhill sprint before approaching "THE BEAST HILL!" After going up the hill for what seemed like an eternity I noticed I and other runners had slowed down a bit to recover from the hill but then quickly sped back up. After entering the second lap we came into the 2-mile marker. I hit the 2-mile around 9:58 and got a nice 2-mile PR as well!!! Then quickly after the 2-mile we had approached the hill again and slowly but painfully made our way up to head down towards the finish with about 600m to go! I found myself and 2 others slowly picking it up and catching a pack with Belen Jesuit's Fabian Thomas. We all rushed down the final hill going through the finish chute and I looked up to see I got a PR of 15:47!
I would like to thank everybody for tuning in to my article and congratulations to all the runners out their including Sarasota High's "Deadly Duo" composed of Zack Summerall (15:25) and Adam Bradtmuller (15:45), as well as my teammates which helped composed the "Deadly TRIO" of Bryce Vokus (15:57) Warran Grajalez (15:58) and myself (15:47). Also congratulations to Ft. Myers' "Beastly Double" of Emily Edwards (18:00) and Tyler Bennett (15:06). Until next time from Blake Riley...
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