Since I never really ran that much over the summer, I would always come into the cross country season "behind." My times would usually be slower than my best from the previous year, and it would take most of the season before I started running PR performances again. However, by the end of the season, I did end up breaking 19 minutes in the 3 mile and 20 minutes in the 5K on our usual tough cross country course. I remember our team tried to make a real effort to win some meets and actually go somewhere. We managed a 0.500 record, the first time I was ever on a team that actually won a couple of meets. We also had one of our best runners go down twice during races with seizures. The cause was eventually nailed down to medication he was taking. It was rather unsettling to see a good friend go through that.
I also have one memory of us going into NYC to run a race in Van Cortland Park. We had just received new uniforms, but of course, it was raining a lot that day. The entire course ended up being a massive mud pit. The first half mile of the course ran through an open field which was almost completely covered in ankle deep water. Needless to say, we ruined those uniforms. The head football coach was actually impressed that we were still running in that weather!
I don't have all my times for that winter track season, but I did get and stay under 5:30 for the mile and 12:00 for the 3200. I also participated in more than a few 4x800 relays as well. After some thinking, I realized that I got sick in the middle of the season! I ended up coming down with the flu. It took a week before I could even get out of bed, and even longer than that before I could run again. I remember having such a hacking cough for a week or so afterward and running would just make it worse. I ended up loosing a bit of weight during that sickness and remember having hydration issues at the start of spring track.
Spring track brought about more of the same at least once my hydration issues were fixed. I dealt with some absolutely awful cramping early in the season. It took me a while to realize that my body was still out of whack from that sickness. Once more serious things were ruled out, I basically drowned myself in water until my body returned to normal and stopped cramping. Knock on wood, 2003 is the last time I was truly sick with a fever. I've had nothing more than sore throats and minor colds since.
In our dual meets against one other school, I frequently ran the mile towards the beginning of the meet and the 4x800 relay by the end. It was pretty manageable since I had time to recover between the events. My sophomore year mile PR was a 5:16 run at an invitational meet at St. Anthony's High School. In my junior year, I once again PRed on the same track, running a 5:14 during a 4xmile relay. I blamed my slowed progress on that sickness and knew I would have to work hard as I only had one more year to try and get that sub-5 minute goal.
My senior year is up next, and with it, the end of my first running life. Things start to get more interesting after that.
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