Of Winning Conference and the Search for Confidence.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous..." -Joshua 1:9


So I got to the end and burst into tears. But this time not the "I ran so bad my legs hurt so much" tears as I've become accustomed to these past few weeks but the "I'm so thankful" kind of tears. ... maybe I should start at the beginning.

I guess it starts with last two weeks. I did everything. EVERYTHING to get back that confidence that I've been missing. I searched every single workout, every trail I ran on, every running dream that I had. But finally I came to a realization. Maybe these past few weeks I had been looking in all the wrong places.

This past Saturday was the conference race for my cross country team. Aside from Regionals it's the most important meet of the season. To much of my team it IS the most important meet of the season. I wrote down all of my positive affirmations in preparation. Read them over and over and over again. And got ready to run for real.

My coach's only instructions to me were "Just go out there and run your own race. And please don't run a 2:30 for your first 800" (it was a 2:57!) before he walked away.

At UW Parkside's Wayne E. Dannehl nationally known cross country course they don't shoot a gun. They fire a cannon at the beginning of the race. And with that we were off and running.

Finally, finally somehow I found my stride. I found my confidence. After the first 800 meters I was all alone. I spent the entire race chasing down the gator that served as our pace car. 

The trails at UW-Parkside are absolutely gorgeous this time of year so I was actually quite distracted for the first couple miles.I went through the mile slightly above 6 minute pace and the 2 mile at about the same. I didn't hit my first mental block until mile 3. I threw in a surge to pick up my stride a little bit. Unfortunately right after that surge I turned a corner and staring me right in the face was a steep hill of solid mud. 

My mantra changed from "Confidence, confidence, confidence" to "Believe, believe, believe". I made it to the top of that hill, and from there the last 800 meters was all downhill and finally to the finish. Almost a minute and a half faster than I ran my previous race in. 

I got to the end and hugged my dad and burst into tears. Because I was so thankful to have found my stride again. Somehow in those four miles I found what I had been looking for all these weeks. Or maybe, I had it all along and I just remembered where to look.