I am happy because I ran today's 5k race in 18:38, though it was a far more difficult course than last week's 18:37. Also, I had the craziest finish of my life.
The way cross country works is that you have seven guys on a team, and the positions of the top 5 are added together to get the score, and the lowest score wins. The 6th and 7th guy are there to try and get in front of the top five members of opposing teams. I was my team's 7th guy, and the guy I passed at the end was the opposing team's 5th. Because having your whole team above anothers' 5th is almost assured victory, this guy was uh... motivated to stay ahead of me. All throughout the race, the wind had been blowing mightily. To offset this I spent nearly the entire race behind this guy, drafting off of him. At the two mile mark, I decided that it was time to pass him and find the next guy. Apparently he didn't like that idea, because every time I'd try to pass him, he'd roar, sprint to stay ahead of me, and try to kick me in the leg with his spikes. He kept this up for most of the race, and each time we would be going faster and faster and faster. In the last 150 meters I'd decided I'd had enough. I dodged around him and started sprinting towards the finish, and for the last 100 meters he kept screaming, "NO NO NO NO NO!" at the top of his lungs, and I ended up beating him by half a second.
Thing is, after we'd caught our breath, he said this. "Thank you for pushing me to run faster throughout that race. I had a good time, and I hope you have a nice day."
Huh. Funny what adrenaline does to some people.