Stanford Recap
This past weekend a group of us travelled to Palo Alto to compete at the Stanford Invitational. It was forecasted to be a wet and rainy weekend, uncharacteristic for a Stanford meet, but fortunately Friday evening welcomed us with perfect conditions. It was a long day waiting for the time when we would make the quick ride over to the track. I wasn't slated to run until after nine at night, so a lot of my day was spent relaxing at our hotel.
Last year I had a great opener at this meet, running a solid time in my first try at 10k. I was hoping to repeat that success this time around, again running the 10k. The end result wasn't very impressive to look at, thirty seconds off my pr, on the surface a lackluster performance. I've been running long enough though to sift through the various emotions that accompany a race like this and find small positives. Racing is as much a personal and internal struggle as it is a competition against other athletes and this time around I scored a personal win even though the result wasn't near acceptable.
In a few weeks we head out to Walnut, California and the Mt. SAC Relays where we all be looking for some new pr's and big performances. As the season progresses we line up against better competition, faster individuals, and proven winners. If we didn't approach these races with zeal we would be lacking a critical part of the formula for success.
Run to 2012!
In other important news, my team, Team USA Arizona, is holding it's 2nd annual fundraiser dubbed Run to 2012. This title represents all of our efforts towards earning a spot on the next US Olympic team, and the fundraiser is put on in order to raise support for these goals. This Friday (tomorrow!) we will be holding Run to 2012 in the Orpheum in downtown Flagstaff. There will be music, live and silent auction items (very cool ones I hear), as well as catered food from local restaurant Big Foot BBQ. Every member of our team has put together a silent auction item and they are pretty creative. I would spill the beans on them but perhaps if I don't you (whoever you are who reads my blog) might be tempted to travel far and wide to see for yourself! It is very difficult to run and operate a team such as ours and every bit of support helps - even if you can't attend there is a way to donate on our website through PayPal.
I just wanted to end with a thanks to those who have supported me all these years. You have played an integral part in guiding me to this point. Thank you.
Dude, I'm still supporting you!
ReplyDeleteAnd you better be planning on getting faster and going to the trials at least, because I know you can go that far and more, you have to get that mind back in check like u did in the past. you used to practically pass out just so that u could get that one place higher, and i know you still have that in you and you just need to rediscover it. Love to race and compete, i mean come on, its the fun of pushing your self and seeing that you actually are better than you thought that permits improvement
You got 2 feet, a track, and a timer, now do something big.