Usually, I start out the blog with a story of running success, a story of how odds were overcome and someone was victorious at the end. However, running isn't always like that, so this week's blog starts out differently.

I noticed the problem about a mile into the race. It wasn't really a problem, per say, but it was just… unusual. As I crossed the first mile mark, I heard Coach cheering, "Go Nate! Come on, Jace!" Normally, Jace isn't close enough to me that I can hear people cheering for him. I was confused, but thought that maybe Jace was having a good race, so I kept running like normal. However, for the next three miles, I kept hearing people cheer for both me and Jace. I was watching my times, and I knew they weren't exactly where I wanted them to be. It came to the point where I was running on autopilot, just running fast enough to stay ahead of Jace.

Before I can finish this story from our race at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I have to interrupt and tell you another story from the race the week before from our race at Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio.

The course at Wilmington College is known for two things: producing fast times and being the conference course for many teams. A lot of teams show up to the regular season race for one or both of these reasons. In my opinion, the school lets too many teams show up, and the course gets very crowded because there are too many runners. I was angry. My anger fueled me to run my best time of the season.

But you can't be angry every time you run, nor can you run your best time of the season every race. So on Saturday, in Michigan, I was in the middle of a race where I was not fueled by anger, nor was I anywhere close to running my best time of the season. I was not feeling like myself and I was not running like myself either. It was as if my mind could not will my body to go any faster, as if I had no energy left to expend, yet I knew I was not running my fastest.

It is in those moments, the moments when we are faced with the decision of going on or giving up, that our character is formed. And honestly, I struggled with the choice of what to do. Should I just run to beat Jace? How would me beating Jace help our team? Shouldn't I try and push myself to go faster? Could I go any faster? These questions raced through my head at a million miles an hour.

Meanwhile, I had turned autopilot off. I began to push. I decided that I was going to spend all my energy and that way if I failed, I could at least say I tried. Then, a strange thing began to happen: I began to hurt less. I don't know how it works, maybe it's the adrenaline, maybe it's focus, but one way or another, I began to speed up and hurt less. I began to pass runners and by the end, as I flew across the finish line, I knew that I had spent everything I had. I hadn't run my best time, but I had given it my all.

In between the racing, we have been running in the rain. Many of our workouts have been run in the rain, or on days when it rained all morning and left the ground spongy and wet. Also, the weather is starting to get cold. We have started wearing long sleeves to practice. Sometimes, weather negatively affects our workouts because it becomes harder to run when your muscles are cold and your clothes are soaked.

With our workouts, we are starting to back down our mileage. Our conference race is only two weeks away, and we are preparing for the beginning of the end of our season. Being in a new conference this year means that we will have new teams to race against, but fortunately, we raced against most of them at Aquinas this weekend. However, the conference race is always competitive and is one of the most exciting races of the season.

We also have the 2nd Annual Rigor Mortis relay this week on the 26th. It's a fun, costumed relay race that we host, in conjunction with Running Club, for the campus and community. Sign up your team this week!