Kilcona race (big hill)

First of all: to be honest I was looking forward to writing this blog post. Well as long as the news on the race was good.... nah I'm kidding I would write about it anyways. But it feels like it's been a while, especially since I did the double-header last week. I couldn't quite justify writing about non-race-related things though, as exciting as my daily life may be. I'm sure the whole world was just dying to know how my hill workout was on Friday, or my coaching session on Saturday, or how I got sick and spent the rest of my long weekend doing nothing but trying not to be sick.
Anyways I was also just looking forward to the race today. I know that seems weird to non-runners and yes, there is a point in almost every race where I think, 'why the heck am I doing this?' Probably the weirdest thing was that it was really the hills on this course I was looking forward to. I have done so much more hill training this year and I feel that it's becoming a strength of mine. So arriving at Kilcona I headed out for a warmup on my own, it didn't seem like anyone else was interested. I've learned that a warmup is essential for me though. The rest of the group was crowded around maps of the course. I kind of ignored that and told my coaches I had run last year and pretty much knew where I was going, especially since I had done my warmup on part of the course. I didn't even realize we were being marshalled onto the start line and found myself pushing between people a bit to get a spot next to Catherine. It was another of those starts where there isn't much time before we're off. They said something about the girls running up the big hill twice this year. I thought, 'Well duh that's what we did last year. Once at the beginning and once at the end, with a lap in between.' I felt strong on the first hill and kept pace with Catherine until about halfway through the lap. She started taking a wrong turn and I shouted out the correst way we had to go. Then she started pulling away from me and I tried to not let her get too far away. Even though I was again trying not to look back I noticed there was a significant gap between us and the next girl. As we turned the corner right before the big hill I heard someone cheering for me, yelling, "Go Janessa, last hill, push till the end!" I was happy to be almost done. But as I got to the top of the hill Catherine ran past the finish chute and people were saying one more lap. I thought, 'Oh crap, I seriously have to do that again?!' Oops I guess I should always make sure I know the course! The next lap was not as fun, I really just focused on trying to keep up my pace and maintain second place. That would probably be the point when I questioned why I was doing this. I tried to tell myself that longer distances and hills were my thing, and that other people would be enjoying this even less than me. It turned out that after the second lap we didn't actually have to go up the hill a third time. Go figure. Apparently everyone else knew this though. I was really glad to finally be done and have another solid second place finish. My school had a great showing today, with full teams at each level. Including Varisty Girls which was awesome! Next race will be the championships, at Bird's Hill once again in two weeks from now.

Day 2, Race 2

Today was my second cross country race in a row. This was the one I had mentioned in my previous post that gave trophies and medals up to tenth place! It turned out that there were no other varsity runners from my school, but I was ok with that. I still wanted to do this race for fun. Also one thing I love about running and triathlon is getting to know so many people. So there was no shortage of people to chat with and stuff from other schools. Unfortunetely my sister decided not to race, but at least she still came for support. I took some of my school's grade seven boys on a warm up run with me. For all of them it was their first cross country race. It made me think back to all the races I have done over the last few years. I don't even have to think about doing it much anymore. I was happy to answer all their questions though; how fast should we start out? how do we know where to go? when should we pick it up at the end? All of a sudden I was told to hurry to the start line and I didn't have much time to mentally prepare before the gun went off. Oh well. I started out with the lead pack and throughout the race slowly dropped off them, while keeping them in my sights. The difference from yesterday's race was it was a different zone, so different competition, which was a good challenge. Actually there were two zones which they split up at the finish line, and I don't technically belong to either zone... but it was an intivational so I was put into one anyways. But back to the race. I knew that my friend and triathlon teammate Ashlyn was a bit behind me, and behind her I think there was a decent gap before other packs. Ashlyn and I run together in practice all the time and are very similar right now, so it could have been anyone's race depending on how we were feeling. With about a kilometer to go I felt myself fading, feeling the fatigue from the day before. I started thinking about how no one would be disappointed in me if she passed me.... but I had been feeling good up until that point so I pushed on and tried to maintain a positive attitude. With about half a kilometer to go she was really starting to catch up and even though it didn't actually matter because we are in different zones, I figured we might as well continue to push each other, and I didn't want to give up. I entered my finish chute still a few meters ahead of her entering the other one. Solid race for both of us. I had no idea which girls ahead had been in my zone. Turned out I was second from my zone, but first varsity girl. So I came home with that first place trophy! Anyways that was some fun racing for this week but back to practices for the next few days. Next Tuesday will be a race at Kilcona where it's important to have my full varsity girls team competing, in order to qualify as a team!

Start of XC season

So today was my first cross-country race! I was really looking forward to the season pretty much since nationals were over. More than anything I felt like my running had really improved and I wanted to see where I was at. I was fairly confident that this would be a good season; I've done lots of hill training and have been injury-free for months. Still, I wasn't sure how my first race would turn out. Last year I mostly tried to stay with the lead pack and finish around top ten overall in my zone meets, top three for varsity. Provincials I definetely want to improve on. Last year I didn't have a super great race, I finished 29th with no particular reason why I didn't do better, it just wasn't there for me that day.
Anyways, today we showed up to Bird's Hill Park in the rain. As the only varsity girl today I was in charge of warming up the JV's. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I told them we would warm up 20 minutes in advance, which meant getting out of the bus immedietely while the boys sat in the nice warm, dry bus. I ended up letting them sit around a little longer as I checked out the course a bit. It had changed from what I have become used to running there. The start and finish were on a completely different place on the course, but similar distance. Which was still quite short unfortunetely. After a chilly warm-up I decided screw it, I'll just run in my singlet. Standing on the start line looking at others wearing warmer clothes made me rethink this a bit but it was too late, we were off. I knew that Catherine would be the one to pace off of for the first bit, and the strategy was to hang on to her as long as I could. Some other girls started out pretty fast, but on the first slight incline I found myself pulling away from them and several hundred meters into the race I realized that as long as I could keep up my pace I would come in second place. Sure enough, I kept Catherine in my sights and made up ground on the girls behind me. I tried not to look back too often. I've learned that I always have my best races when I don't look back. I was also cold, which was some encouragement to get the race over with faster! I crossed the line with a solid second place, nothing too exciting. But I was pretty happy with the outcome. Got some warm clothes on and waited to cheer on the JV girls. My sister raced which made me happy! The guys also did well, I'm proud of everyone that raced. After catching my breath I felt good again pretty fast. I like being able to recover quickly, especially because I plan on racing again tomorrow! It not as important because it's not really our zone, but I like this meet. It's a nice course, my triathlon friends will all be there, and the prizes are good. I mean, in grade ten I got a tenth place medal! Where else do you get tenth place medals? And grade eleven I got a first place trophy. I don't get too many of those. So tomorrow should be fun. Hopefully I've got another solid race in my legs and the weather improves!

New Blog

I didn't really see myself as the blogging kind of person. I always figured to have a blog you had to be either so interesting that people cared to read about your life, or full of yourself so that you believed people would anyways. I don't think I fall into either category but I've still decided to give it a try. I know that many triathletes do have blogs, which I like reading sometimes. Some are actually really good. This is another category I'm not sure I will fall into. But I don't usually tend to care about falling into categories. The main reason I decided to give this whole blogging thing a chance is because this summer I did have some interesting experiences that people seemed to care about. I found myself writing long emails and race reports, and the list of people I sent it to kept getting longer. I thought, "hmm this seems almost like a blog anyways, so why not?" I don't really care about sharing this with the whole world, if only a few close friends and family members read it, cool. If more check it out, also cool. I enjoy writing anyways so we'll see how this goes. Maybe just a crazy idea, I am pretty tired right now. But maybe not so crazy.