The Conference Meet- It's Not About the Time

Hey guys,

So today was my last cross country meet of my junior year of high school. I had a great season, and I had a lot of fun. However, one of my best friends, Caussin, is a senior and it was his last cross country meet in his high school career. We are great friends, and I even got him started in triathlons earlier this year. Anyway, today our coach wanted us to do well, and was pushing us to run fast. I wanted to do well for coach, but I also wanted to have one last race with one of my best friends. But remember I'm still coming off of my broken wrist, and have not been running that much recently, so I was pretty unprepared for a high-performance race today.

Regardless, we toed the line, and the gun went off. I stuck to my race strategy, going out slow and then beginning to negative split, but my first mile ended up too fast, due to becoming swept up in the field of athletes as we ran down the hill at WakeMed soccer park 5k course. My first mile was 5:20, about 20 seconds faster than my usual mile one time, but I continued with my plan to increase speed. But, something I did not account for happened, my wrist started to hurt a good deal with each stride, due to the pounding of running. I did my best to push through it, and kept on keeping on, running up the hill and moving into better position. But, as is life, my wrist started to hurt a lot. I started to slow down just before two miles, and had been reduced to a jog as I cradled my arm and watched as my teammates and people I'd passed earlier in the race run by me. I was encouraged to keep going, but there was something more important on my mind than running well: to support my friend. I kept up a slow jog and tried to get my breathing and pain under control, and just calmed down. Shortly after I started jogging, Caussin caught up to me. He ran by me, saying "My homie," and we started to run, side by side, just like the old days of last year, when we would not leave each other's side during a race.

We got to the bottom of the hill, and shared a very sentimental moment. You see, when we used to run workouts at WakeMed, we would say "honey badger," because the honey badger was a pretty intense animal, and didn't care about anything or anyone. By channeling the honey badger, Caussin and I were able to get up the hill a little easier. So when we approached the bottom of the hill, I said "One last honey badger for the road?" He replied "Hell yeah, let's get it," and we started up the hill. As we ran, I tried to pull him up the hill, using hand signals we invented 3 years ago at one of our first cross country races together. We got close to the finish line, and we were very close to breaking the 20 minute barrier. I turned around and yelled at Caussin, saying how long we had and encouraging him to get across the line, and we did! His last race ended up being a 19:55, and we were both happy.

After the race, on our cool-down, he told me "Jarod, when I saw you waiting for me in the woods, I choked up. Like for real, the tears were coming. I love you homie," and it really meant the world to me. He's one of my best friends, and it was my best race of my life.

Guys, you can't be serious about racing all the time, because there are sometimes things that are more important. The feeling I got for helping Caussin out was as great as winning a race, and although everyone asked what happened to my race, I had to respond with "It was one of my best races." It really was a very special day, and I'm very glad that I made this decision. My season was great, and my whole team really was awesome. We had a great year, and I have to say, I'm going to miss our seniors, Caussin especially.

Moral of the story-don't leave your friends behind. Your friends often are your support team, your training partners, your transportation, your cheering section, and everything else, and if you take advantage of them, they'll go away. So take a moment and thank your friends.

Happy training guys!