Leading up to race day, we had a few hiccups. I hyperventilated my way through the flight and only teared up once or twice, so we were off to a great start. Then, upon arriving in Pennsylvania, we learned that two of the drivers we had planned on were not, in fact, old enough for the rental agencies to trust them with their vehicles. We were at the airport for about an hour and a half while that got sorted out, and ended up finagling our way into the cars anyway. By the time we reached our hotel, it was dark and we had yet to run. Since coach was a little wary of letting loose twenty-two wide-eyed country kids from Utah to run through the streets of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, we rolled out to the course for a little late night course previewing. If you've never run alone through Pennsylvania cornfields in the dark, let me just tell you right now, you aren't missing out. If there was a Yelp page for it, I would rate it zero stars. In the daylight hours, I am a semi-rational and somewhat reasonable young lady. After the sun goes down, it's a completely different story. I kept seeing shapes in the cornfields, and at one point I actually thought to myself, "Oh no, it's the fabled Pennsylvania werewolves. My life is about to end." It wasn't even a full moon. A few rabbits darted out over the course, and I sincerely believed they were serial killers rustling around in the corn waiting for unsuspecting runners to prey upon. I think it's possible that I watch too many true crime shows. Probably the greatest tragedy of the day came about later that night, though, when Presli and I ordered peanut butter chocolate silk pie and they had the audacity to bring us regular chocolate silk pie. The nerve of some people.
The race itself was a happening good time. Before the women lined up, two of our male counterparts won their respective races, and it was looking like the men's team would take the title for their race, so Utah State was getting some side glances from the crowd. Getting out in a field of 400+ ladies wasn't as terrifying and PTSD-inducing as I anticipated it being. Probably the biggest issue I faced during the race was that I forgot to make note of the distances during the course preview and I somehow didn't notice the signs off to the side that clearly stated how far you have gone every 1k and mile so we got to the three mile and I was still laboring under the delusion that we had not yet hit two miles. Boy did I feel silly. With 1200 meters to go, I reminded myself that a) my teammates were out there grinding as well, and we all needed each other to be successful and b) Josie's mom can ran 1200 meters, so you'd best believe I could put in just a little bit more effort. We ended up coming away with three individual wins, and a sweep of the team titles on the men's and women's side. I don't think I have ever seen such a group of rowdy individuals as my teammates when we got the news that we had beat number 15-ranked Villanova by over 40 points.
Also, because I mentioned in my previous post that we would be going to a Broadway show in New York, I feel obligated to tell you all about that experience. Believe it or not, New York is vastly different from Logan, Utah. There are a few more people, and they are not quite as happy to see you. Times Square and Broadway were amazing (Phantom on Broadway was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen), and I would definitely like to marry into money so I can go back and watch Broadway musicals casually on the weekends, but New York is not a place that I would ever want to stay for extended periods of time. On the way back, we learned that the train back from the city is equipped with doors that close automatically, whether everyone who wants to get off is off or not when we managed to lose two of our teammates and our trainer. They did eventually make their way back to the hotel, though, despite my sincere concern that they would disappear into the train tunnels and become mole people, never to be seen by us again.
In other news, since starting this post, the national coaches' poll has come out, as have the various national rankings from different running-central websites. The coaches' poll has the women ranked 19th, and the men coming in at 27th. This is the first time in the history of the school that both the men's and women's teams have been ranked at the same time, and I really can't express what an exciting time it is to be at USU. We are all still very motivated to keep moving up, and are not willing to let ourselves be complacent or settle in at all, but we're also extremely happy to have reached the point that we have. Our next competition will be next Saturday in Louisville at pre-nats, and we're definitely ready to move up a few more places in the rankings. (No I'm not bitter that Villanova and BYU are still ranked ahead of us. Okay, yeah, I'm totally bitter. Sorry about it.)
 |
| Got some prom photos done while I had my corn bouquet, courtesy of my teammates |
No comments:
Post a Comment