Golden South

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to be able to fly out to Orlando, Florida and compete in the Golden South Classic.  It was an automatic qualifier for the Dream Mile, so I thought it was worth a shot.  

I flew out with my mom on Friday.  We didn't get in until that evening, so we didn't have a chance to see much of the city.  Saturday, we spent most of the day either at the meet picking up packets and getting ready to run, or in our hotel relaxing.  She wanted to go to Disney World, but I figured since I was there to race, it would probably be best not to spend the day on my feet in the sun.  I wanted to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter myself, and it took all of my resolve to turn it down.

Just so you know, if you've never been to Florida, it is really toasty.  And humid.  Being from Utah, I'm pretty accustomed to fluctuating temperatures.  But the humidity was something I was not used to at all, and I was a hot mess pretty much the whole weekend.  

 The race itself was quite an experience.  It's always interesting when you get that many girls who have run under five in the same race.  The setup of the meet itself was a little unusual.  For one thing, they didn't do any calls at all.  They just expected you to be paying attention to what event they were on, and turn up when it was your turn to race.  They also didn't have any of the girls who had registered show up for the 3200m so they cancelled it.  I don't think I've ever been to a meet where no one showed up for an event.  I was in the second heat of the mile, and the girls in my heat had all run under 5:10.  Through the first lap, it was just a huge pack.  I'm pretty sure I was in dead last for most of it.  Coming through the second, the pack started to break up.  We came through the 800 mark in 2:30, which was surprisingly slow for the group I was with.  Things started to heat up in the final two laps.  The lead pack was down to about six girls, and with 400m to go, the lead two took off.  It took me too long to get out of the pack, so by the time I started my own kick, the leaders were about fifteen meters ahead.  I finished in fourth with a full mile time of 4:54, and a 1600 around 4:51-52, which was a pretty decent PR for me.  It was a really fun experience, and I'm glad that it was the race that closed out my high school career.

Now I start my transition into college running.  I'll probably take two weeks off of running to just cross train right now like I do at the end of every season to avoid overtraining or burnout, but after that I'm ready to dive into training for college.  I'm excited to start this new chapter of my running career, and to see where it can take me.