First Cross-country Meet with Penn Running Club

Last Saturday (10/15) was my very first cross-country meet with Penn Running Club (PRC) at Princeton- the Ivy League Championships/ Heps Club Cross-Country Invite.  It was my very first competitive 6K, so I was naturally very nervous.  Granted, I have run many 5K races before, a couple of 5-milers, a couple of 10-milers, 3 half marathons to be exact, and several 6 - 7 mile trail races.  But those were recreational races, while this was running with PRC's women team.  I definitely felt a lot more (probably self-given) pressure to perform than when I had run the other recreational races.

I met up with the team at 1, and drove with them to Princeton.  The course was beautiful - grassy, sunny, windswept (yes it was chilly!).  After a warmup run and a couple of striding runs, we were ready to begin.  At the sound of the starting horn, a rush of adrenaline surged through my body, and I started striding out with the bulk of the other runners.  It was a huge mistake, beginning at that pace.  My pride and competitive edge made me want to try to keep that fast pace for as long as possible.  But halfway through the course, I started feeling it - the shortness of breath, the heaviness in the legs that only meant I had started faster than I should have, and was now feeling the lactic acid buildup from the anaerobic activity.  I slowed down significantly during the later half of the course, and ended up with a timing of 29 minutes - a 7.8 min/mile pace, which wasn't terrible (for my standards, though I'm sure it would have been terrible for others' standards), but I had run 6 miles at a 7.5 or 7.6 min/mile pace before, so I know I could definitely have done better.  Moral of the story is- always run your own race; never try to just beat everyone you see, just so you have the satisfaction of feeling you're better, because in the end that's not gonna work.

Even though the race itself wasn't a good race for me, I had a wonderful time overall because of the team.  Amongst all the different Ivy League schools represented that day (Penn, Princeton, Cornell, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown), the Penn runners showed the most team spirit.  We tried to run together as much as possible (e.g. if someone else had a similar pace, we tried to keep together as much as possible), we cheered each other on - the guys' team cheered the girls' team on while we were running, and when it was the guys' turn, we ran around the course to cheer them at different junctions; we even did a human pyramid to cheer them on!  In the end, Penn was placed second for both the mens' team and the womens' team; Princeton was first for both.  But personally, I felt that Penn Running Club, won that day- we were not just a group of individuals who each placed high on the rankings; we were a team.

I look forward to running in more upcoming races with Penn Running Club, with my fellow team-mates.  Regionals (Oct 29) and Nationals (Nov 12)- here we come!