The Renegade

So we left for the 6 hour drive down to Hurricane at about 7:30, stopped at our hotel in Cedar at around 1:30, and headed down to the meet and got there at like 2:10. I was sooo hot, but I was expecting it. We did our team warmup and then chilled till Jack thought it was time to warmup. We ended up having plenty of time to do everything, thankfully. We waited on the football field for the race and did some strides and warmups, trying to stay in the shade as much as possible. Jack and I were both in the fourth and fastest heat.

The starter pulled the trigger a couple times in a row and the gun didn't go off and I think everyone was ready to stand up but it was a delayed reaction and the gun went off. I had a pretty good start, and immediatley found myself up next to Joe Benson and Will Handley for the first fifty meters, and I was like oh crap, better drop back, so I did a little bit and settled in. The air was so dry, my throat was super scratchy for the entire race. Don't remember the first 400 split but I came through the 800 in around 2:23, and new I just had to keep it up to PR. This was when coaches started shouting to push it as always, so I made sure to do that too. I was hurtin pretty bad and just tried to push it even more on the last lap. I think I passed one or two guys in the last 200. Fun race, but it definitely hurt. There was one 3A state qualifier in this race with a 4:31, and I think he is the only one qualified in the mile as of now. Jack ran 4:36, so three seconds. I think everyone could have run a few seconds faster if not for the heat, especially the northern utah people.

I thought was done so I did close to a two mile cooldown, part of it barefoot on a church field and came back. Later my coach told me that I was running the 400 leg of the medley. Luckily the medley didn't come until hours later partly because of some camera problems. When it was time to warm up, the sky was already pitch black and the lights were shining brightly. I was actually really pumped. We were in the slower heat. Our sprinters (really 400 runners) put us in about 3rd place out of 4, and I had kind of a bad handoff with Isaac. I ran the first 200 (into a strong headwind) kinda drafting behind Wasatch and a 2A school. We hit halfway and Millard passed us all, and then those two slowed down a ton and I easily passed them. I felt great. Split a 56 matching my official PR. Gave the baton to Jack in second and he opened in a 55, and ran a 2:03 800. Overall time 3:47, three seconds off of state qual. In the next heat Timpanogos won with a 3:45. We all wished we had been in their heat because we probably could have won. It's exciting that we almost qualified for state, because the 3A standard is actually faster than 4A.

Jogged a bit on the infield, grabbed a something to eat, and we headed back to the hotel.