"The only good pace is suicide pace, and today's a good day to die."

Steve Prefontaine said that. I followed it: and came up short. In a time of 4:41 (unofficial) I crossed the finish line, good enough for 11th place. My goal was to place much higher and even put myself in the position to qualify for state. In order to do this, it was obvious that I would have to race the first 3 laps harder than I normally would and see what I had after that. I did race the first 3 laps. My splits were 1:05, 1:09, and 1:08; this was putting me on pace to smash my old PR by more than 5 seconds. Sadly, it was on my final lap that my body gave out. I finished the race with a 1:19 gun lap.

There were a number of guys who passed me in the last 100. Was this depressing? No. Unlike many of the people who passed me in the last 100, I had made the decision to see what I was really made of. I pushed myself past my normal limits and came up short. And I'm much more comfortable with myself for having done that than I would have been if I would've run my typical race. Running in high school has been an enjoyable experience and I think I've learned a lot about who I am by doing it. Now I have college to look forward to and goals that I am intent on reaching.

Tomorrow's Johnny D's open house, so I'll probably be headin' up to Valpo. Before I do that, I'll probably just lay around or maybe go the beach to lay around. I now get to start resting for around 2 weeks. It's gonna be weird not running, but my legs need the rest really bad. I would also like to thank those of you who went up to Portage to see me run, that was really really cool. I am very grateful to have friends that do not even think twice about doing such a thing even with everything else that was going on today. So once again, thank you. ~Rich