Hi, everyone! I'm a freshman girl and my cross country season recently started. This is my first time actually doing cross country because I've had soccer, but I've ran about 32 5ks before. We've had two weeks of training already, and yesterday we had our first meet. The results for my team were as follows (my team is predicted to win state this year):
Girl 1: 18:23 (SR)
Girl 2: 18:37 (SR)
Girl 3: 18:47 (JR)
Girl 4: 20:20 (SO)
Girl 5: 20:33 (SO)
Girl 6: 21:05 (SO)
Girl 7: 21:16 (SR)
Girl 8 (ME): 21:24 (FR)
Girl 9: 21:33 (JR)
As you can see, I was the top of JV for my team. Girl 7 and Girl 6 beat me by 8 and 19 seconds. Unfortunately, the meet races were freshmen/sophmores and juniors/seniors, so I did not have the chance to run with Girl 7. If I had, I would have had the motivation to beat her. I was ahead of Girl 6 for most of the race, but she pulled ahead of me in the last mile (I have an issue where I get slower as I get more tired), and I was even with Girl 5 for awhile, until she saw me and sped up (which she admitted to me after the race). I think with more training, I can be faster than Girl 7 & 6, and maybe even as fast as Girl 5. For now -- Me, Girl 9, and Girl 7 will probably be constantly interchangeable for the 7th spot on varsity.
The issue that I have is that since our next meet will be broken up by Varsity and JV races, I will not get to run with any of those girls (other than Girl 9), so I won't have people from my team to pace with or to try to beat. Of course, there will be all of the girls from other teams, but I don't know their paces. Also, this will be my second ever meet.
I really want to shave time off my 5k so that I can be on varsity. Does anyone have any tips that I can use during races / practice to help me achieve my goal of being on varsity and staying there?
Thanks so much!
-WTBOV