Running Blog

am: easy 3

Pm: another easy 3 with striders. We wrote a song with kaelie g. Fun. 

I wasn't really sure whether to count this as a race or not, but might as well. Pretty much just the same kinda tempo stuff we do every saturday, but with other people around. Felt fine at first, just running with Stoner,  but my legs are just so so achy all the time now.. it was hard to keep them moving.  Otherwise, I felt good. Fun to see everyone come out and support this great cause. We warmed up 2 miles on the course, then cooled down 1 mile on the field and 1 mile looking for the little kids so we could finish Jake's race with him.

Well, after staring at the January calendar on here for a good minute, wondering where the heck I was supposed to put today's run, I found the February button. Congratulate me.

Am: easy 3. I actually wore a jacket this morning.. twas chilly. Megan scared us all to death by tripping on a concrete block thing, but she's okay. Also, liz aubrey and megan kept separating from us, so we'd hide and scare them.. fun stuff. Except mostly I just stood and watched them scream.

Pm: 4x1000 repeats at 89%. We finally adjusted my time, so I have an actual goal time for these workouts.. todayit was 3:44. First one, I felt lovely and ran a 3:43. Second one I was too slow for most of it, then I picked it up on the last lap and hit a 3:41. Wasn't too happy about that one, cause I had to make up for my lagging on the first lap and a half. Third one felt really hard.. definitely the hardest one. But I hit a 3:37. The last one I felt really good for the first lap.. I felt like I was flying. Then I didn't feel so amazing the next part.. but I didn't slow down and I hit a 3:36. 

So I felt super good about this workout. First one in a while that I haven't felt sick or sore. Weights,  stretching, and rolling after. Plyos tomorrow.I 

Am: one of these days, I'm gonna fall asleep while taking my heart rate and not wake up in time for practice. It took me 5 tries this morning cause I kept drifting off. Bleh. Still chilly out there.. plyos after. Felt fine.. I think I do them wrong or something.

Pm: Trail Tuesday!  The dreaded Icehouse trail. The 6 of us girls decided to switch off being the leader every half mile. Turns out the giant hill is exactly half a mile long. My calves were seriously considering shriveling up into little raisins.. gross. But the way down was fantastic! I just about face planted into stoners legs, but I caught myself.. the entire girls team made it the entire run on our feet! It went by a lot faster with the whole switching off thing.. I actually really enjoyed it.

 am: very quiet 3. Warmer today.

Pm: 8 miles with 30 minute tempo.. unfortunately, I didn't finish the tempo. My legs hurt so bad.. at the turn around I just stopped.. and tried to lean against the rail, missed it and fell.. Cameron probably thinks I'm an idiot. I'm so mad at myself for letting it get to me, but honestly, my calves hurt so bad. Roberts stopped and jogged with me the rest of the way and talked with me.. he made me feel a little better. I don't know. Definitely a frustrating day. 

No morning practice today..

Old man hills. 1x800, 2x400, 4x200. The 800 and 400s were fine..  just ran with rach and coach and my calves just hurt a little. Then we started the 200s and I just was feeling like I wasn't getting any air. Which is stupid, because my breathing issues are all mental and I know it, but it feels so real. I mean, they are real, but I'm causing it. If that even makes sense. Anywho, Megan killed the last two 200s and I did okay.. my last one was better than my first 3. Took me the entire run back to the school to get my breathing back.. and then my calves started tightening up way bad.. so I took it pretty slow. The coaches told me to drink more water and gatorade and get some salt and potassium in me. So I took a water bottle to school today (I drank like 40 oz..) and bought some gatorade and chocolate milk. Plus I ate a pickle. Pretty delish.

Easy 3 today!! Woot. Mia and I ran along giving flyers for the race tomorrow to businesses. Fun. Then striders after.

Bleh. No morning practice this morning.. I searched the whole house for my car key and guess what. Jake had it. I had a presentation early anyway. 

Pm: time trial. Harts warm/cool. I ran the 800 one.. I was kind of nervous to find out where I was.. but not too bad. My first lap was a 1:12, which is good.. but I didn't really go on the last lap like I should have. I ran that one in a 1:16, ending up with a 2:28. Faster than any time I ran last year, but still slower than sophomore year. So I guess I need to remember to push harder the last lap. Striders and stretching after.. and now I have runners cough. Joy.

Am: didn't really feel like running way ahead with stoner and mia so I ran with aubrey and liz.. none of us said one word during the run. Not one.

Pm: 8 miles with 30 minutes at 6:40ish pace. Coach ran with us today.. that helped I think. I stuck right on with the group til a little after the turnaround.. then coach told me to surge up to get back with them. I did, and stayed with them for a little longer.. coach pushed me a bit. But I was struggling. So I ended up doing the 1 min on/off thing.. then, weird thing happened. My feet fell asleep. I still could run fine and stuff.. but it felt super weird. It got better after though. It was a little discouraging that even with the slower pace and bigger pack, I still fell off.. but that's the longest I've stuck with them since our 18 minute tempo day. So.. I'm getting there. Tempos are just not my favorite. My calves still hurt, but not nearly as bad as last week. Weights after. The end.

Am: three.. aubrey tried to get in on our scaring adventures but it failed.

Pm: [traditional] green springs run. Aubrey and roberts opted out of the tunnel crawling part, but everyone got in on the berry wars. My calves hurt on the way out, but felt much better coming back. Lovely day.

Am: three. Brought stoner and mia home with me afterward for a valentines breakfast of german pancakes. (:

Pm: 8x200s at 37 sec. This is definitely my kind of workout. I love repeats. This felt pretty easy too.. I never felt like I was really pushing. My splits were 38, 38, 37, 36, 36, 36, 34, 34. My calves felt fine except during the warm up and cool down. Weights after. Twas a wonderful day.

Am: three with lots of shadow punching. I didn't participate.

Pm: trail.. uh.. friday. Prospector (pete) trail. Had a great conversation with roberts, had a stick the length of my pinky stab through my shoe into my toe, got a little bit lost (there were NO FOOTPRINTS! I'm tellin ya, Roberts!) and had a lovely time. The squishy car ride was also enjoyable.

Old mans. Liz, megan, aubrey, stoner, mia and I all met up at the school to do the, together. We also saw Erin and Hunter out there on the hill.. that's 8 people done with their workout by 9:00. How dedicated of our team. Anyway, Aubrey and I had 4x400, 4x200 (we think there was a misprint on the blog..). The first 2 400s felt hard! Like, harder than usual. But the next two felt fine. The 200s went by quickly, but by the end of them, my calf/Achilles area was way tight. So before we ran back to the school, I took off one of my shoes and stretched. Then on the way back, my foot fell asleep again! So weird. I was almost attacked by a demon cat, but we fended it off with our screams of terror. It was an okay day, but I'm sick again. I've been coughing so hard it's making me gag, and I can't really breathe through my nose. But really. Who needs to breathe?

Pm: 3. In the desert by mi casa. It was dark and cold, and we almost got lost and froze to death. Also, a bird flew out of the bushes as we ran by, and I'm pretty sure Michael state qualified in the high jump. I laughed so hard I started coughing and couldn't stop.

Didn't get a lot of sleep last night cause I was coughing so bad, and I ended up not going to morning practice.

Pm: repeats. 4x1000 at 3:46 pace and 2x300 F pace. I did not feel great today. My first two were all right at 3:45 and 3:48.. but I really struggled with the last two. I ended up with a 4:00 and a 4:01. I was trying not to let it get to me mentally. Then Alli and Aubrey and I did our 300s. They were hard! I ran :51 both times.. it was hard to recover from them. I keep having coughing fits that last a good minute and make me feel like throwing up. Bleh.

Wasn't allowed to run yesterday.. instead, I napped for 2 and a half hours. I honestly had no idea cough syrup made you drowsy.

Am: first morning run in two days! It was lovely. Plus plyos.

Pm: 10x200 at 37 seconds. My favorite workout!! I seriously love this one. I didn't like it when we ran behind the guys though cause they always stopped at the starting line (apparently we were supposed to.. but it was still annoying) and I had to run in like the third lane to get past them. anywho, my splits were 39, 38, 37, 35, 35, 35, 36, 35, 37, 35. And we took our heart rates after every 3 200s.. mine was a solid 153 every time.. I'm blaming it on the sickness. Harts cool down.. and we planned a girls team day to go to swig, sang our Homie Joe song, played the Shelley game (stoner won.. apparently I'm like Velcro.. Who knew?!), taught Aubrey and Megan the xc rap, and jammed to T Swift in Stoners car. I seriously love our team.

Am: three with Megan and Aubrey.. pretty crazy run. We're pretty much party animals at 6 in the morning. Not. But we did actually talk once when we passed the guys and noticed the whites had separated from the blacks.

Pm: easy 3! Sandburgs with the boys. Fun stuff.

 vertical test after.. I jumped 20 inches. Take that, Mia! Striders and stretching after.. half marathon tomorrow! Ahh!

Race day.. the only day ever in my life on which I will eat oatmeal.  I ate it in the usual way: by taking as many bites as possible until I gagged, then dumping the rest down the sink. 

Picked up Stoner and Mia and got over to the course at like 8.  We ran a little and did agilities, then went and camped out in a nearby hotel with like 70,000 other runners.  Then we went and put our clothes in Hunter's car and got to the starting line.

Stoner wanted to start out faster than last year, cause we were mostly catching people for the first few miles last year.  So we did, which isn't my favorite thing.. I like starting out a little slower, then catching people as I go.. but it wasn't a big deal.  We stuck together for the first 5 miles or so.. at the 3 mile mark, I fell behind a bit, but I caught back up before the 4 mile mark.  This first half of the race I feel pretty good about, because I wasn't feeling awesome, but I stuck right in there and even when I fell off a little, I stayed the same distance behind.  I ran with this one dude who never actually talked to me, and then another dude who did talk to me and told me about his son named Tony who ran against Dave Sheeran and I told him about my mom and Coach. 

Then I got to mile 7, and disaster struck.  My feet fell asleep.  I could feel it starting to happen and I was like "no no no no no no no. Not here. Please."  But they didn't listen.  I grabbed some gatorade at an aid station over there, but totally missed my mouth and splashed it all over my eye.. my eyelashes stuck together the rest of the run.  I was still doing okay up until like the first hill.. that was where I saw Aubrey and my parents.  But the hills are when my legs start to get tight and it didn't feel too good.  The first hill was hard, but not awful.  The second hill was terrible. I felt like I was crawling up the thing.  It was at this point when my feet were completely asleep and my legs were pretty achy, and I said to myself "ya know.. how about instead of racing, I try to make it to the finish line still on my feet."  But after the hill I started going faster again.  It felt like there was a million years in between the 11th and 12th mile markers, but I got past both of them and found the guys, who were cooling down.  Michael came and ran in front of me to block the wind.. I was kind of annoyed, but it got me moving quicker.  Then Coach came and ran with me and told me to kick.. so I kind of did and caught like 3 ladies or something. 

As soon as I crossed the finish line, I sat down and ripped off my shoes.  Why do my feet get numb?  It's the dumbest thing I ever heard.  Anyway, I thought I came in at 1:44, but the clock was way off and my time was actually 1:37, which is faster than last year.  Happy about that, and I was way happy for how great everyone from our team did.  Last year I was way mad after the race.. but this year I honestly was just happy (after finishing anyway.. the whole during the race part wasn't so great).  It was a lovely day and I was just glad to be alive, which is always a good thing.  I'm glad I ran it.

Am: three. Hamstrings don't feel too great.

Pm: 4 with striders. Holy smokes. My legs were not happy with me on the way out. The way back felt better. It was a fun run though with lots of singing and waving.

THEN. Decathalon clinics. I don't know that I've ever been so awful at so many things all in one day before. But it was way fun. I liked the shotput. 

AM: 4 miles with Mia dear.  Had 4 fartleks with it.. by the end, my calves weren't feeling great.  But we got it done with and did plyos after.  Then we sat in the locker room and had some intense conversation until we realized the bell was about to ring and we hadn't showered yet.. whoops.

Pm: easy three to green springs [again]. Then more clinics.. i got hit with a discus at the first station, so we moved to the javelin station.. where I immediately got nailed with a softball from over the fence. So we went to try long jumps. Turns out I'm all right, but I still got made fun of. I hate everything.

Am: Kosmin test.. so cold! I don't like this test very much.. I'm not very good at it. This time I made it 693 meters.. 3 meters farther than last time. Woot. 

Pm: decathalon! Holy smack. I'm awful at everything! I beat stoner in the 200 and the high jump.. but she beat me in the 100 and the shotput. We decided the real name for the decathalon should be Public Humiliation for Everyone Except Janzen and Archie. We could call it PHEEJA. After the events, i did 3 miles on the track with Stoner and Aubrey. 

Am: easy 3. Stretched, iced, and rolled after.. my shin hurts. 

Pm: three around the track plus striders.. and the decathalon! Did a little better today. I beat janzen in something! Can we all pause for a second and realize the momentousness of this day. Because pretty sure it will never happen again. It was the discus. And I beat her by 5 feet. And I'm pretty sure it is the crowning moment of my high school career.