State Games of America, 100m, in Lincoln NE.
Mike and drove up the night before, and had a nice dinner. I got a decent night's sleep, slept late, and then we had to kill time. Since there were only 4 women in my age class (3 from NE) we would not be running a qualifying heat in the morning, and the race was scheduled for 1:28.
So we went out to breakfast, picked up my packet, then toured the state capitol building. Made it to the track, and it took forever to check in; I was worried about having time to warm up.
But then I had enough time. I am still figuring out how to prep for my races; I seem to need a long warm up. So I did some jogging, then some sprint specific warm ups, then more jogging. I also decided to drink some caffeine about a half hour before the race.
The other new thing I did was to run two 100m warm ups. The first was at "run as fast as you can" pace, then a 8 minute break, then sprint 100 m at "just below race pace", about 10 minutes before the scheduled start.
The last new thing I did was to use a standing start, instead of the blocks.
I felt a bit nervous at he start, definitely felt some adrenaline, but I was not super nervous.
I followed my plan: right at the start, I said (in my head) dig, dig, dig. Then I said push, push, push. Then I noticed that I was getting tired and my form was starting to fail, so I looked at the woman ahead of me and tired to stay with her. Finally I just lunged across the line. They announced right away that the winner took 14.98. I knew I wasn't 2 whole seconds behind her, so I felt pretty sure I had a PR. But it took 40 minutes before they finally posted the results, which confirmed it: 16.56. I was so happy!
Mike and I decided to take back roads home. We saw a sign for
Homestead Monument of America and decided to stop. It was very interesting, about the Homestead Act and family farms. We walked along mowed paths through the prairie flowers from one exhibit to another, watched the film, and walked along the woods trail. Just a nice little museum and setting.
Stopped in Marysville (where else ? :) for dinner at the very popular Wagon Wheel restaurant, and finished the day with champagne and chocolate cake when we got home. A perfect day!