View Workout (Rachael O'Neill)

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districts 2010

October 22, 2010 (Afternoon)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
I cant even believe what happened to day. It was just so surreal. I wanted to get 21:39, and i beat that time! we beat centennial. we are going to state. STATE! I've prepped for this race more than i have for any other race in the past two years. i got nine hours of sleep every night last week, i drank a billion bottles of water every day, i stretched more at night, and i resisted eating all of my mom's desserts the whole week, which is not an easy task. I knew how much this race meant to the team, and i wanted to do all that i could to help us go to state for rusty's last year with us. I want to thank everyone so much for motivating me for this race: ashley and sarah for their pictures and notes, heidi and liz for the goodie bags and inspirational talks on our run, and all of the girls for your prayers! You all do so much for us, and ijust want to let everyone know how much i truly appreciate it :)
okie dokie. So this whole race i felt like i was in a daze. i didnt really feel anything, i was just flying. I got a tiny sideache for like thirty seconds, and then it went away thank goodness. I have to say my best races are with sarah, and we were together the WHOLE time, and it was the best race of my life. we push each other so much, and we just work great together. i love it!
if i could've done anything better, i wouldve kicked just half a second harder, or one step faster at the end so i couldve caught that vallivue girl. But the thing that i think i did well was that i surged at the spot where i said i would before the hairpin turn by the tents.
mile one: the first mile i felt like we were going too fast, and maybe we should settle in, but i think i started out well and was in a good position. i felt totally fine the whole time, and when we hit mile one we were at 6:27. i told sarah and we were estatic! for once, we actually kept our speed instead of settling in, and that was the best thing we could've done.
mile two: this is when i got a baby sideache, but it didnt affect me much. all of the coaches were telling us to latch onto the red girls (centennial) and the yellow girls(vallivue), and the whole time i was so confused because all i knew was that we had to beat vallivue. i thought of this super corny saying that kept running through my head since we were supposed to get vallivue, i thought of "go for the gold". hahaha it's so dumb, but it worked! when sarah and i went across that green part by the park before we hit the sand, we passed two centennial girls and one vallivue girl and i was PUMPED! i caught my feet in two potholes this mile, but thankfully i didnt fall down.
mile three: oh my goodness. we were at like 13:30 when we hit the second mile marker, and by this point my legs were numb but we just kept truckin. this mile flew by! when i was like 2/3 across the sand, Rusty said, "rachael, go now! get at least 2 girls!" and usually im thinking "yeah, whateverr, no way can i do that. i'll just go when i'm ready" but this time, i actually did! i got one girl when i leaped from the sand to the grass, and kept my speed up, and when i hit that pavement, i went for it. I could see another vallivue girl a ways ahead of me, and as i sprinted i got closer and closer. as i was coming up to the end of the pavement, i tried to go as fast as i possibly could, and i was literally ONE STEP behind that vallivue girl. I was so afraid that we wouldnt make it to state because of me, but thank goodness we still made it! when i saw my time at the end i thought i was going to faint. and when i found out we were going to state, oh man i was such a mess! I was jumping like crazy and hugging everyone i saw, and i started crying and smiling and laughing at the same time. oh my goodness i still cant even believe it.
i'm so glad the season's not over yet. i knew it wouldn't end at districts. i just had a gut feeling that we weren't done yet. I'm so proud of all of you girls. you worked your butts off at districts, and look where it got us! STATE! and sarah, i couldnt thank you enough because there's no way i could've done that alone. without you, we probably wouldn't have made.