The first practice I ever had with our team was the season's first timed trial. This was an opportunity for every runner to push themselves and get a realistic sense of their current ability at the 5k distance. The main problem for me was that I had missed most of the pre-season and had no idea how to pace a 5k. I hadn't run more than a mile or two all summer so I was definitely a bit nervous. I remember following one of my friends for most of the run, partly because I had no idea where I was going, and partly to gauge his pace. Although I don't remember my specific time, I remember it was slow for a high school cross country runner, somewhere just over 30 minutes.

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From that day forward I had a few goals for myself. The first was to make the varsity team, we were small so that wouldn't' be too difficult, I would just need to shave 4 or 5 minutes off my time. My second goal was to run a sub 20-minute 5k. I wasn't sure how realistic that was but I started to gain confidence throughout the season. I was pretty lax on the long runs but pushed myself during drills. Midway through the season, we had a streak of 3 races in 2 weeks that were all on our home course, the same flat course we'd run our first trials on. I knew that would be my best shot at the 20-minute goal. Watching the seconds tick past 20:00 as I sprinted down the chute was devastating.