Woke up in the morning with my throat swollen almost shut. Felt very bad. I attribute it to seasonal allergies. Very bad pain in the sinuses and throat. I took medicine for it and I felt light-headed. I got to the meet and it still felt bad. Furthermore, the Invite was even more delayed than I anticipated and I ended up eating too early as a result. At this point I was fairly confident I was about to lay the biggest brick in the history of bricks. The race began and I hung on to the lead pack. We were hitting fairly consistent 71.5s and came through the mile at 4:46. Still a strong group at that point. I believe our 5th lap was slower. 100m into our 6th lap, a guy from Jackson HS made a big move and took off. Nate Pendleton ran after him and although they slowed their sharp move distanced them from the pack and the gap was growing. I responded fairly quickly to this move and got to the front of the chase pack, and then began pulling away from them. I got into second a bit past the start of the 7th lap and spent the whole lap reeling the Jackson guy in. Passed him with 350 to go and he got me back with about 270 and got about a 3 second gap by the end of the race. I missed my PR by half a second but I felt so bad today before and after the race that I think this is a very encouraging result. Will, Matthew, Chris, and Tom PRed with 9:50, 9:57, 10:12, and 10:22, respectively.
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