Zone Championships

I love it when I have fun things to write about. That's what keeps this blog going. Well, another success story to add to this year's awesome cross country season! I've realized next year I'm really going to miss high school cross country. The people and the competitiong are awesome. Anyways, today we skipped out of school to spend a good chunk of the day at beatutiful Bird's Hill Park for the Zone Chanpionships race. It was awesome to have a varsity team of 6, and I was happy to help lead the varsity and JV girls in a warm-up. Standing on the start line I was surrounded by all the Westgate girls, and was looking around for Catherine. Jane said hi to me and I asked where Catherine was that day. The pressure was on as soon as Jane said she wasn't there. My team all of a sudden was convinced I could win this race for us. I'm pretty sure haven't been this nervous all cross country season. I felt the pressure to help out my team because it would be a close call on the banner this year. I knew I had to be completely sure of the course if I was out in front, and I had to make sure I paced correctly. I was afraid that without her in front of me like usual I wouldn't have the same motivation looking forward and would instead be stuck on looking backwards and hoping the girls behind wouldn't catch me. Wow and all this worrying lasted about sixty seconds. We were off. I pulled to the front and it felt great to take my place there and have control of the race. I felt strong all of a sudden and knew I had to use the initial hills to my advantage to gain a decent lead and mentally seperate myself from the rest of the pack. And I did. I would say I consistantly made up ground on the rest of the field throughout the race and felt strong the whole way. Approaching the area where we finished the lake loop and headed out to the forest loop I knew there would be lots of cheering. I looked forward to this mental boost after putting out so much effort in the first half of the race. I wasn't disappointed; all the Westgate guys and coaches were there for me, as well as people I knew from other schools and people I didn't know. With maybe a kilometer left of this 4.4km race I felt myself starting to fade, and was tempted to back off the pace a bit as long as I maintained the lead. But I knew that I wanted to be proud of the effort I put in and instead imagined Catherine was right there in front of me. I also realized this was the first time I have lead a cross country race from start to finish and wanted to fully enjoy every moment and feel like I earned it. In the end all the hard work paid off and it felt great to make the team proud! I am also really proud of everyone that raced. As I helped keep track of the guys race right after to determine if they would get the banner it looked like they got it! Not sure about the girls but whether or not we get it it was an awesome race for everyone, hope they all had as much fun as I did. Next stop: Provincials!