OLYMPIC B STANDARD!

This past week I travelled to the Cayman Islands and to Puerto Rico for two FAST races. The Cayman Invitational was the first event, held last Wednesday (May 9th). Dennis and I stepped off the plane on the 7th in the Cayman Islands to thick, humid, hot air. I love the heat, but for track and field athletes, especially those in the distance events, humid weather can make or break a race. Luckily, the Windsor summer doesn't feel much different from this so I told myself I would be OK. On race day, I did a pre-race shake-out run in the morning and was feeling good. The race was scheduled for 6:35pm, and by that time the light wind had died down, but it was still pretty hot. My warm-up was not going well, I was really feeling the heat. But, with previous experience I knew that a bad warm-up is not any sign that it would be a bad race. Dennis and I talked race plans and I pushed how I felt about the warm-up out of my head. I knew that there were some fast girls in the race, and we had a rabbit, so everything would be set out for a good race. I just tried to breath, calm myself, and get the sweat off my face.
The race ended up being delayed about 20 minutes, which was perfect. It gave me time to settle down, get in some good strides before the race, and most of the all, the temperature cooled off just enough.
There were 5 girls in the race plus 1 rabbit. The gun went off and away we went. I was sitting in about 3rd coming into 400m, at about 300m I could feel the pace start to slow a little so I got out of the way of traffic and continued pushing forward. With 250m left I was feeling good so I went for it and finished strong running a time of  2:01.81 a new personal best and winning the race. I was very excited with this result; it's thousands of a second off of Olympic B Standard which is 2:01.30.  The crowd at this meet was unlike any other crowd I have experienced. These fans LOVE track and field, they cheer (loudly) for every competitor. It gives me chills thinking about it, but I do have to thank the fans as they were spectacular and very supporting. Coming down the home stretch and there are thousands of people screaming and yelling at you... it lights a fire under your butt.

The next day we left early in the morning to travel to Ponce, Puerto Rico for the last race of the season on May 12th called the Ponce Grand Prix. This was a race that we had originally planned on going to, we knew there was some big names, and a deep field; 6 of the 8 girls in the race had previously run under 2:00 minutes in their career. Again, weather was hot and sticky but we ran at 8:25pm under the lights of the stadium and the conditions couldn't have been better. I was nervous for this race because I knew that it was going to be a little tougher to find a spot in the race, and it would be going out much faster than what I had previously done. And, not to mention I just ran a personal best 2 days earlier. My warm-up was OK, feeling a little bit of the previous race in my legs in some of my drills, but I knew I had to forget about it. Once I'm on the line, none of that matters anymore.
Once the gun went I knew I had to get the cut-in at a decent spot in order to be in contact with the front of the pack. We went through 400m in about 58, and I was still in contact with the lead 4 girls. With 300m to go the pace started to move and I went with it and decided to keep going with it. I finished 2nd in the race, but even better I accomplished a huge goal of running Olympic B Standard and setting a new personal best of 2:00.76!!!! I'm still on a high after being home for a few hours. It was such a positive week and such a boost to my confidence at this time of year. This is what I've been working so hard for, every single day. I'm very excited with the result and cannot wait to see what the rest of the year has to offer.

The support after the races via text, facebook, twitter, and e-mails was mind blowing. I want to say THANK-YOU to everyone for their support. It's a very comforting feeling knowing that this many people are behind me, cheering for me.

Up next, I'm heading to Phoenix, Arizona for a race on May 21st.

Unfortunately, no race footage of either race. If I find anything I will be sure to post.