I did alright in my first cross country race ever. It really wasn't cross country though. Instead of running on the big dirt hills, they moved it all to the road. They switched the course for the first time ever due to all of the rain. I didn't bring my flats so I was a little bummed about only having the old trainers. I saw Ted at the start and talked with him for a bit. We started and I went out with the top 3 guys. One of them was trying to be a rabbit while surging and then coming back. I didn't take the bait but just ran my race. We hit the first mile at 4:54 and things still felt fine. I could hear a couple guys right behind me the entire race. We made our way into the stadium at the finish and the two guys right behind came up and we were all giving it are all with the final 100 yards. I ended up missing out on 3rd place by 2 seconds. It was a nice change of scenery for a race. Talking with the guys afterwards I found out the five in front of me ran in college or are currently running in college. I was happy with the effort today despite the course being a little long (3.20 according to Ted's Garmin), no flats, and recovering from a cold. I averaged 5:17/mile overall. I ran a 2 mile cooldown with Ted and his son. It was fun talking with them. The kids on the cross country team had a good time and ran well. We took a long bus trip back to Mesquite and stayed at the Virgin River hotel. I ran another 6 miles to top of the night. I ran the back way from the Virgin River over to the Oasis. It was nice because their was hardly any traffic. It was a little hilly which surprised me. Here are the splits: 6:29, 6:15, 6:01, 5:48, 5:42, and 5:45. I was happy to get some more miles in due to the long trip. It helped loosen up the legs. | 