Track and Field Blogs - Kenny Woo

Well, today was my first meet of the season, also my first varsity race in any of the track seasons. I was a little nervous when anybody brought the subject of the meet up, but besides that, I didn't think about it through most of the day, until the last period of school, where I was anxious for the period to end.

I really forgot what the feeling of racing is like. I put my spikes on for the first time in months (I need to get new ones, I just realized they're too small.) and I got the familiar feeling of adrenaline pumping, anticipating the race. I missed it.

And then came the race. I could easily say I felt the worst during the beginning of the race. The trail led into the woods, and there were people running out of the woods at the same time we were going in, and there were also some kids from other schools getting in the way of me. The pace just didn't feel right even though I wasn't really going fast at all. Once I reached the first clearing (About a half mile in?) I had some quick thoughts that I wasn't going to make it through the race. Once I got back into the woods, I picked up the pace, and everything started to feel better. Leaving the woods, I felt myself slow down a bit, but I knew there was only 1K left, and I started to push hard. I really kicked during the last straight. A sweet 2 minute PR in the 4K. (16:09 to 14:10) I placed 9th in the race. For my team, I had placed 8th. We had taken the top 5, and a runner from another school got 6th.

I'm really looking forward to the first 5K now...