As the season progressed that first season I would get incredibly worked up and nervous before meets during school. I mean I was almost ill. The butterflies were that bad. On the bus ride to meets I was so mentally wore out that I would curl up on the bus seat and go to sleep. The over riding thing that I thought about was the pain. Though I was learning a little it still came hard. When we started off I fled to the front determined to venture out as long as I could. We knew no better, no one advised us any different, and being our first year we had no idea how good any of the teams were. It turned out more often than not that they were a whole planetary system ahead of us in most cases. As previously mentioned the one team in our county was state champs that year.
Back to the pain. There is something awesome about flying across a golf course or athletic field near full tilt. Everyone of us was ass over tin cup. Honestly it felt good to be in it for a quarter mile or so. For me that first year I'd hang tough about a half mile and then the cream of the crop easily ground my bones to make their bread. In a couple races I faded and our best senior beat me out. He ran the 880 during track season and he was the funniest guy on the team. He would have been great had he been able to have had a couple seasons under his belt. He was always yelling at people during the race in a comical way.
After that first half mile the pain was already on board. As I said earlier you also find out the people you are typically near by the mile marker are the ones you end up racing against. You just don't want to be soft and give in. If I could maintain contact there was a reasonable chance I could find another gear near the end. I have nothing like that now, but I did then. It is a nice thing to have and I learned not everyone has it...though at the time I believed everyone did. I know it was the lowest rung of XC, but man I loved it.
Finished the week with 83.7 miles and I'm signed up for the Ice Age 50 mile in May.
I just listened to an audio reading of Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps the worst book ever.
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