Running Blog

Green springs. some creepy guy yelled at us and when i looked over, he was taking a picture of us. not okay. weights after. they were fine.. but now my hamstring hurts.

i was kind of excited to get out and run today.. it just makes me feel so happy! first we tested our vertical though. i jumped... (drumroll... dramatic pause.... HUGE breath...) 19 inches. yay. we wont talk about what alli jumped. anyhow, we ran out in kiddleton today. fun. mia and i sprinted about .25 of a mile trying to catch up to coach to ask a question. then we slowed back down with the girls, but stoner, mia, aubrey and i kept a pretty fast pace going for the rest of it. it felt way way good. my hamstring bugged throughout the day and a little at the beginning of the run, but after a little bit it calmed down. so im hoping its probably just sore. during the run, some random kids started running with us.. for about 15 feet. they tried to keep up.. we were just too fantastic.

got up at 7:30 today so i could get the run in before work. so. cold. i had gloves on, but at the end of the run my fingers were so cold and swollen that i couldnt open my garage and i had to stand outside my front door and ring the doorbell  like seven times. then i had to run my sister to home depot to meet her ride to soccer, stretched outside the car while we were waiting for her ride, sped home, got ready for work, and left.. the entire time i was shivering like none other. but just as i left for work, katie texted me and said im not working this weekend. curses. welp. got my run in anyways.

repeats today! first time not doing a workout with stoner and mia.. weird. anyhow, 2x1000 at 85%. i felt sick today and was jut hoping for an easyish workout so i could still do well. my goal time was a 4:06 but it was super easy and i ended up at 3:52 and 4:00. still felt sick, but i liked the workout. harts warm/cool. weights after. super fun.

trail run today! honestly, practice has become the best part of my day. i love getting out there and running with the girls, even if its a workout or whatever. anywho, ran up mustang pass. it was a little tough on the way out and we lost some girls but on the way back liz, taylor, aubrey, and meskerem stayed right with stoner and mia and i. party! then my mom took me to buy some new running shoes! i got some new kinvaras and and a pair of the brooks launch. hooray for not having to run in nasty ripped shoes anymore!

tempo run today. 12 minutes of tempo.. for me and stoner it was about 6:35 pace. the tempo part felt fine.. fairly easy, but afterward on that road upnto the school, it was a fight between my legs and my brain.. my legs were so so tired but my brain just wanted to finish it. i stretched really well afterward, but my left leg kept cramping up and i just wanted to die while i was driving home. its okay now though.. thats good.

the workout got changed today because of the wind, so we went dog pound with striders after. it was good.. my leg started doing that hurting/cramping thing again so i didnt do the leg stuff when we did weights. just bench presses. im not sure if doing weights would have hurt it; it's not like an injured pain.. it just feels like my leg has a really bad stomach ache. whatevs. i'll go buy some gatorade tonight.

Kosmin test today. I got to do the 800 one.. yes. (: I made it 690 meters.. I dont think thats very good. Oh well. I'll improve, I imagine. It was quite chilly out there today. Reminded me of last saturday. Speaking of, it looks like im going to be running by myself in the cold again tomorrow. I have to work (for real this time) so I have to go at like 7 in the morning. Boo. 

Mia came to run with me today!!! Yeah! It was only 19 degrees outside though. Much too cold for me. I ran in much warmer clothes this week.. TWO pairs of gloves (best decision of my life), soccer pants, a long sleeve shirt and a running jacket thing on top, and a headband. I felt ten times better than last week. We only went seven though.. we were both afraid we'd be late for our respective engagements.  Also,  neither of us had a gps watch,  so we had to guess our tempo pace.  I did have a dysfunctional stopwatch though,  so we did our tempo for the right amount of time at least. It felt really good and I was so glad Mia came. 

Repeat Monday!  3 1000s at 4:13 pace.. except faster than that,  because my kosmin test was so slow that my 1000 pace went up instead of down. So the workout was super super easy. My splits were 3:58, 3:59, 4:05. I really tried to slow the last one down to hit my pace. It was pretty cold out there today and when we got into the weight room,  my poor frostbitten hands started burning.  Also,  my legs broke out in hives.  It is far far too cold outside these days. Weights felt good though. 

Trail tuesday. We went out by the water tank today. I felt super good. There were some largish hills, but even though we stopped to regroup at the top, I felt like I could keep going. The only annoying thing was when we went downhill, my hip kinda bugged. But not too bad. I had to drive out into the desert to find the half of the team that  didn't make it back.. they all got lost. There was a little scare when we couldnt find Hunter and Evelyn,  but after a few minutes, they came back the other way and all was well. The end.

Pretty eventful day today. Water was shut off at school til lunch so no bathroom for us! Then when we were changing after school, the automatic flusher thing on the toilet in my stall went off and kinda scared Mia and me.. shortly thereafter it went off again and BOOM! Explosion of toilet water everywhere. All over the floor and on my leg and on my bag and school pants. I screamed and ran smack into the wall of the stall and Mia started laughing her head off.. then BOOM! Hers exploded too. That'll teach her. Anywho, long run with tempo today. 8 miles with 18 minutes of 6:40 pace. Felt pretty good until the turnaround, then I just wanted the tempo to be over. When it finally ended, my calves were pretty tight, but I got to stretch them when we stopped to open a mysterious door in a mountainside. After a few other holdups, we got started again , and ended up being like the last people back. also, we saw the fattest dog any of us had ever seen. Ever. It was short and HUGE. Like a hippo in a dogs body. Anyway. Good run. The end.

Old man hills today! 4x400. It was kinda weird cause there were only four girls there.. and only two of us were doing the 800 people workout. It felt good though. It wasnt a crazy hard workout, but I really tried to push myself hard on the last one.had a lovely talk with aubrey and megan and liz on the way back about smoothies and senior ball. Weights after.. felt way good. Then stretched really good and rolled my hip. Lovely day.

Easy 4 with striders. We went to starbucks today with megan, liz, erin and roberts. We threw a ball around and had some lovely conversation. My hip was feeling fine. I stretched after and everything. Fun day.

Another run by myself. I woke up at 7:30 with a sore throat. I got a Ricola cough drop, concerning which I'm pretty sure the general concensus is that you should never eat them unless you're on death's door and all the stores within a 100 mile radius have run out of the Halls brand. Neither of those scenarios applied to my situation this morning, but my mom made me take one anyway. Anywho, everyone had 5 miles this morning, except the 1600 level three guys and for some reason, the 800 girls, who had 5-6. I just went 5 anyway. I took my dad's phone so I could track my pace for the tempo, but there were two very large problems with this: 1. The touch screen only responds to skin touching it, not a glove, so I had to keep one thumb out of its glove the whole time, until it got too cold, and then I started just smacking it into my nose so it wouldn't go dark and lock. 2. The GPS on my dad's phone is even worse than he watch we used on wednesday when it comes to pacing, and the times were ALL OVER the place. It would go from 5:30 pace to 9:00 pace in two seconds. Once it even went from 6:20 pace to 11:15 pace with no numbers in between. So it wasnt much help. But I think I was probably pretty close. I started to have breathing problems and my calves were tightening up by the end of the tempo. So I stretched and I might even stoop so low as to take another cough drop before the day date.

So mia and rachel and I arranged to meet at the school at 7 cause stoner had to be back at her house by 8, so I headed over there at 7:15 (I was late cause I needed to find myself some medication.. im dying over here) and no one was there.. not even a car. I waited and waited and finally just ran by myself,  kind of annoyed that they made me wake up at 6:45 and then no showed.. it actually turns out we all kind of no showed each other.. we lack communication skills, apparently. Anyway, it was quite freezing but I really enjoyed the run. It was nice to be able to just have a chill run with no tempo and just get to think. Stretched and bought myself some cough drops (the Halls kind!) and cold medicine afterward. Hallelujah!

Repeats today. I was feeling absolutely miserable all day, and it got even worse when we started. My stomach was killing me and I was coughing up a storm. But the workout went pretty well. I was supposed to be doing 4x1000 at 4:13 pace. Usually when we do repeats, I run the first one or two kinda fast then try to slow up and actually hit my time. But coach said that if we can hit a time consistently, then that's good, even if it's faster than what you're supposed to hit. I hit 3:57, 3:56, 3:55, and 3:54. So I felt pretty good about my times, even though I felt like poo physically. Weights after, felt good.

Bleh. No run today. Sickness and such. I'll be back tomorrow.

Oh what a lovely day! Six to green springs with 1x2min and 2x1min fartleks. But along the way, we had a couch party at my house (SOFA-N, SOFA-N), then crawled through a tunnel long enough to get us to China.. unfortunately, this one only led across the street. Then we creeped on McKennah, had a berry war, and I smacked into a tree. Then weights and striders while we sang and did handshakes. What a great day.

Am: easy 3.. actually felt really nice outside. Afterward, Mia and I sat in the locker room and talked about anything and everything (mostly marriage) until it was so late that the cheerleaders came in. 

Pm: Trail run! Chuckwalla trail.. super fun. I felt way good, but I hate the way our groups string out and some people end up running by themselves so I tried to be the link between roberts and Megan,  and hoped we would kinda group back together, but no such luck.

Went at 6:30 with Mia dear. We were gonna go 8 miles, so it's a good thing I checked the blog before we went. we had 20 minutes of LT pace, which was like a 6:20 for us. Again, we didn't have a gps because the only one we own is my dad's phone, and we weren't allowed to take it in the rain. But I had a regular watch, and I made a mental note of where I was at 6:20 and 12:40 so I'll drive over there later and find out how far it was. I dont think I was hitting my times though, and Mia was pretty far back, so I stopped us at 15 minutes. This tempo thing is really hard for me. I can do repeats and fartleks and old man hills.. but I can't keep a hard pace consistently for 20 minutes without stoner beside me. Which is dumb, cause it's just like an xc race, only no pressure. I'll keep trying though.  Also, we saw Mr.  Green running! Twice.. but Mia only saw him the second time.

So.. I just drove and measured. In the first 6:20, I made it .96 of a mile. In the next 6:20, I made it like .90 of a mile. so whatever that means.

Am: a very quiet run to Arctic Circle and back.. froze to death in the showers after.

Pm: repeats at 87%. We weren't really sure what my time should be, cause I was already beating my 87% time last week. So we decided just a little faster than last week's average, which was 3:55. My first one was 3:48 and I felt just great. Second one I was a little behind at first, but then I caught up to Josh and Dave and ran the last lap with them and I ended up at 3:49. I wanted to stay in that area, and I was nervous that on the third one I was gonna get slower than that.. so I overcorrected and went 3:44. Whoops. The last one I was just happy to be done and went 3:44 again. Harts warm/cool and weights after. We put a little more weight on the leg extensions and curls and felt a little sore after. But it felt good. Hot chocolate and cookies with Alli after. (:

Temple quarry trail. We got there before the rest of the girls, and coach just gave us the watch and told us to start when we got there. But then we felt bad when we passed the girls.. sorry ladies! Anyway, twas fun. We all slipped and slid and got a little lost.. and we encountered some leaping squirrels. Chilly out there today.

Am: I knew I should have just gone back to bed when I tried to brush my teeth and the entire blob of toothpaste plopped onto the counter before it even made it to my mouth, but I showed up at school anyway. Easy 3.. with the guys. Eh.

Pm: 8 with 24 min. tempo.. supposed to be like a 6:30 pace or something. I was told to stick with Mia, but things felt too slow so I picked it up a tad.. and I was feeling okay until the turnaround.. then I was just done. I felt sick and my calves were tight, and Stoner just kept getting further away. After the tempo was over, I still felt awful. My legs hate me right now, but I swear I'm stretching and rolling them. BIeh. Just one of those days I guess.

Old man hills today. 4x400 with Aubrey.. we're the only 800 girls who run together.. it's a joy. I like talking with her. Anyway, today they felt much harder than the last time we did them.. I think I was going faster today though. They also went by quite a bit faster. I felt way good, except my arch was in considerable pain, but I'm thinking that will be taken care of pretty easily. So no worries there. Just a lovely workout, if a bit hard. Weights after.. we upped our weight on the bench press to 5 pounds on each side! It was a little difficult, but we're pretty buff.

Oh. And good news. I saw a dead bird today. Which means that there's one less live bird.