AM: Ran 2 at a good pace Ran to wawa and back Hot outside Hydrated well PM: Ran 10 at a good pace 3-mile warmup (3 miles) 4-mile race in 20:08 (7 miles) 5:01, 5:04, 5:07, 4:57 3-mile cooldown (10 miles) Hot outside Hydrated well 4 striders Didn't know how today was gonna go, I told myself I'd be proud if I ran close to 21 mins. I got out in 5:01 around 20th and just formed a pack with Sam and Jaime from haverford, I decided to just stick with some familiar faces. They started to pull away with the Penn and Nova guys through the second mile so I just kept them in my eyesight and focused on passing the guys that fell off the pack. I caught back up to the back of that pack by the end of the loop and split 5:04 which placed me around 15th. For the next mile I just focused on running it with Sam and picking off the guys that dropped off of the lead pack, we were hitting 5:07 and moving up to around 10th. I broke away and started chasing down the lead pack towards the end of that third mile. There was a decent gap so I just slowly chased down the pack and caught them on the hill. Once I got to the top I just opened up the stride and let loose, passing a bunch of people and finishing 5th. That was the first time in a while I got to use my kick and I was shocked with it. Doing the striders it seemed that I didn't have it, but I guess I just needed 4 miles to warm up for it. The entire time of the race I was waiting for the punch in the gut, but it never came. I hadn't felt this way with this pace since Rowan from my sophomore year, and I'm hoping with proper timing that this is my worst race this year.