Pre - Conference

Its very hard to believe that I’ve been out here for a month now, and yet I have. There’s still plenty of stuff that I don’t understand, but I’m definitely learning. One thing I can’t wrap my head around is the weather. Things seem to change in a flash. Obviously, this happens in England as well, but I would say that the changes in Kansas are far more dramatic. Today it’s around 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 30 degrees Celsius. Yesterday however the temperature was about 15 degrees, and the day before that it was nearly 5. In the space of 72 hours I’ve gone from (in English weather) a dreary January morning to the first week of August.  

Pre - race prep

Friday’s weather was basically perfect for running though; I couldn’t have asked for better conditions for my first proper American race. I use the word ‘proper’ because last week was really just a warmup – all of our races between now and the end of the season will be over 8 kilometres rather than 5. The course for this meet could not have been more different from what I had run at McPherson. McPherson was a single lap, and basically flat. The pre – conference course in Salina wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before. It was on a golf course first of all, which meant that we were racing on freshly cut grass. But, as with a lot of golf courses, the course rolled up and down constantly. There wasn’t one big hill, as is usually the case on the English courses, but instead there were loads of medium sized hills. There were so many of these that they seemed to meld together – which meant that you were constantly climbing or descending. What’s more, the race was ran over three laps, so you really got to know all these lovely hills in person It was a hard race, but I’d learnt my lesson from McPherson. When the race started quickly, I made sure that I wasn’t at the front. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t dead on my legs half way around. After the first mile I was probably in around 20^th. By the third mile I was in about 10^th. Guys just started dropping like flies after a third of the race, I couldn’t believe they’d started so quickly when they clearly couldn’t keep it up. I finished the race in 7^th, with Isaiah just behind me in 8^th. I dipped under 27 minutes, which I was happy with as a season opener. It’s crazy how much of a difference the heat makes when you’re racing. I ran 18 minutes in my 5k last week, and I ran 17.00 in the first 5k of my 8k race this week.

Team Talk. Go BC!

Bethel’s men’s team came 3^rd overall as well, which was a major spanner in the works. To give you and idea of how big this was for the team, I’ve attached a link to the Collegiate Newspaper with my cross-county team write up in it, which was published on Friday. I actually meant to attach my draft to my previous instalment, but I couldn’t figure out how I’m afraid.

Me and Isaiah post race - the top ten runners got 
commemorative t-shirts from the host team. 

Nothing much has been happening on Campus over the past week – we’re moving more and more back to (relative) normalcy, most of my classes are now in person. I’ve been doing plenty of interesting stuff off campus – this weekend for example I’ve headed into Wichita with Isaiah to watch his brother’s High School Cross country meet. The first race was at 7am (7am!), which I didn’t enjoy getting up for. It was so foggy that I couldn’t see 10 meters in any direction, so watching the race was quite difficult. As I write this, I’m sat in the Bartel family home, they’ve all been extremely kind and welcoming, though one of the dogs has been rather over welcoming. My spirits are pretty high, though I am missing England of course, and my opening week on the fantasy football in shaping up to be a disaster.

Dinner with the team before the drive home. 

Link to Collegiate