I felt unstoppable. I was about a quarter-mile from the finish line of our race and had just passed two opposing runners. I sprinted down the hill, trying to put as much distance as I could between us. "MISSED IT!" someone behind me yelled. "That's right," I thought, "You missed your opportunity to pass me and now I'm going to beat you." Running even faster now, I flew down the course and headed around the softball field.

I couldn't even hear my opponents behind me anymore. I rounded the corner of the softball field and saw our team camp. No one was there. This was odd, but I dismissed this fact because everyone was probably at the finish line. As I went to make the second to last turn, I saw a runner I had passed about five minutes earlier run across the course in front of me. I was angry. He had cut the course and was going to beat me! Then, I saw the white stripe that the other runner had been following.

Oh.

Everything suddenly made sense: the yell, the silence, the empty team camp. I had gone the wrong way. It had been the right way on the first loop, but the course split the second time around and took a different (and shorter) route.

By the time I figured all this ou,t I was back on the course, but had no chance of catching up to where I should have been. To redeem myself, I chased down the runner in front of me (you can run surprisingly fast when you're angry), and finished with my ego being slightly smaller than it was at the start.

This week, we began our second full week of practice. We had a meet and got to explore some new places around Mount Vernon. On Tuesday, we went to Wolf Run Park. In the past, I have avoided running at Wolf Run because it is very hilly, but the hills are the reason that Coach took us there. The hill workout was pretty challenging, but we will benefit from the work later. We had an easy run on Wednesday, and then did some core strengthening (the "Chip Ripper X Workout", as Mark calls it). Coach is focusing a lot more on core strengthening this year, and hopefully that improves our running form and efficiency, or at the very least, gives us awesome abs.

Thursday was our first race. For most of us, it was the first race of the season. For Chad, CJ, and Chris, it was the first race of their colligate careers. Our race was located at Kenyon College, just five miles down the road from MVNU. (Coincidentally, it's within running distance, but who wants to run to a race?) The race was a short course, so we only ran 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) instead of our normal 8 kilometers (5 miles). The race went well, with most of the team posting good times and most of the team not getting lost on the course (okay, I was the only one who got lost). After the race, we made our first trip of the year to Wendy's for dinner.

This week, we are looking forward to cooler temperatures and racing at Ohio Wesleyan on Saturday. We have never raced at Ohio Wesleyan's course before, so this is going to be a new experience for everyone! Hopefully, I will stay on the course this time.