Track and Field Blogs - Kenny Woo

I went to the Manhattan College Invitational at VCP on Saturday. I was excited because we were pretty sure we were going to win the sophomore race, so all of us were pumped.

The race was nothing short of a nightmare for me. The race started, I got out at a decent pace, I knew what I was going to do during the race because I had learned some of the "course secrets" at the Foundation XC Camp... Which was what I thought. But everything changed as I entered the so-called "Cow Path" where my left spike untied. I freaked out. Should I get down and attempt to tie it? I would hate to be the person to ruin the race for us, so I decided not to tie it and just continue with the race.

It was a total psych-out. I had to constantly make sure that my shoe would not come off, so I wasn't able to use to downhills as much as I wanted to for the "rollercoaster" effect that makes the course so much easier. The shoe was loose, and the shoelaces just kept flapping against my calf. I watched, terrified, as I saw people passing me on the downhills that I planned on using to pass people myself. I could do nothing about it. I wasn't going as fast as I planned, so you'd think that I'd have plenty of energy to kick at the end. But if I couldn't go fast downhill, I wouldn't be able to use the momentum to get uphill, so i was probably more tired than I would be if I was going as fast as possible. But once it reached the point where I knew there was only flat left, I went as hard as I could. I passed some of the people that had got me on those hills, there was no risk in losing my shoe now, so I had to go. But though I was going fast, I was scared by all of the runners from the same schools on other teams in front of me. Approaching the last straightaway, I heard a coach yell to his runner wearing green.

"Pass the red and yellow! Pass the red and yellow and you win!"

I looked ahead. There was indeed runners in red and yellow uniforms in front of me, as well as green uniforms. But what about blue? What about us?

I ran hard into the finish, feeling like I was going to throw up. 14:31 was the time I heard. I was pushed down the line with the usual "KEEP MOVING, DONT STOP!" in the line as I attempted to rip off my little nametag and stop gagging and hand it to the person taking all of the tags. I also took a medal for getting top 75 (I took 18th Place, and 4th for my team). As I exited the line, I spat, and went down to tie my spikes. There were spike holes in my shoelaces.

We did end up beating whoever that team in green was, but we lost to the Red and Yellow. Chaminade. A local catholic school, not too far from my own school.

I wouldn't consider myself the only one to blame on our team, but I'm still really dissapointed.

There were some good things about the meet. We did get second place, a nice trophy, two medals, and I also got to hang around with the team and fool around at Cemetary Hill, take some funny pictures and videos and just mess around. I got to talk to a couple of friends from other schools that I haven't seen in a while such as the lovely Sophie McQuiston who told me to "****ing double knot your ****ing spikes before your goddamn ****ing race." (She's a nice girl, really.)

Oh and to end my longest blog so far, I'M REALLY REALLY REALLY SORE AGAIN GOD DAMMIT HOW AM I GONNA RUN A RACE TOMORROW DAMMIT.