Chapter 25

Dating life and cross country both seemed to be going well. Though on the running season there I at least knew the end was coming up. We had finished our dual meet season winning each head to head race. Who knew what would happen come regionals though when there were a total of seven teams competing.

One thing that we did to change things up this year was for a show of solidarity. As serious runners pretty well everyone on the team had a regular workout running shoe and then the lighter-weight racing flats with the plastic spikes for extra traction when needed. They didn’t give near the support and cushioning that regular shoes did, but they were meant to only be worn for races themselves. What the plan was though was to spray paint them. With our school colors being brown and gold we decided to spray paint one shoe gold and one shoe brown. It made for something admittedly kind of silly to do, but it seemed to be helping the general mood of our runners since we got together the day before the race to do the spray painting as a team. It was also made easier to do since we weren’t doing more than just stretching so that we would be fresh and ready for the big race tomorrow.

The regional race was held at a neutral site, a city park in Bountiful. It did make it closer to Viewmont’s school, but at least it wasn’t where they held their races. The course was plainly maked and when we got there those of us who hadn’t run the course the year prior had time to look it over, since it consisted of a one-mile loop repeated three times. It would then break off on the final lap and head to Bountiful High’s track to finish. It was kind of amusing that was the case with Bountiful “hosting” the race when they weren’t even in our region. But it did make sense, it made sure it was a neutral ground race and Bountiful was pretty central with our schools spread from Layton through to parts of Salt Lake City.

The weather for the day seemed to cooperate as well. It was good weather if a bit overcast. Just enough though that all it did was bring the heat down a little and not make it as bright. Regionals was the last race that would have a junior varsity race seperate. As was the typical pattern the JV races were run first, then the girl’s varsity and lastly the boy’s varsitty. Thankfully I’d kept any debate from my race position nonexistent this year as I had finished no worse than sixth.

Watching the finish portions of each of the early races had me thinking we were going to still have some good teams after those of us who were seniors graduated. We wouldn’t find out the official JV results until after the varsity races true run and everything was complete, but by an educated guess I would have to say we were either first or second in JV for both girls and boys. While the girl’s varsity was going we were doing our final seperate preparation for our race. I had always liked concluding mine with a few short accelerations to get the blood flow up and the muscles warm. It also helped get the heart rate up so you didn’t have to play catch up at the beginning.

When the race started I would have to say I was feeling the adrenaline of my first regional race. I came out of my opening surge and started to settle into a “comfortable” race pace (no pace in a distance race is comfortable, just manageable) and looked around the lead crowd to see that it looked like I was running third so far from my school and top maybe fifteen to twenty overall. I honestly didn’t feel like I was going too fast though, just that I was maybe feeling better than previously.

At the halfway point of the race things had changed some, but it was mainly in balance. A couple guys who were in front had fallen back and a couple had moved forward. One of the juniors from my school had come up to run at my shoulder. Focusing on the run we didn’t bother to try saying anything, just a quick head nod as we helped each other push. By the time the race finished we were still pretty well neck and neck though he had just barely edged me out. I felt good though with my overall position still finishing in the top twenty out of the region varsity teams and I also felt that as a team we were in a near lock for the top two teams and qualifying for the state meet. I did some mental calculating and was thinking that if I was the fifth place runner for my school and had placed seventeenth overall that we stood a solid chance of breaking our string of second place finishes and actually winning.