Running Blog

3 miles during my second block of time and 3 400's during the Dash for Cash. My legs fell off and withered away after every 400. Felt like that anyway. I slept a little before the 400's, so I was kinda tired. But everyone on the silver team did way good and worked really hard. I was way proud of them. Aaaaand.. we won. (: First time my team has ever won. Ever. Probably due to my excellent leadership skills and level-headedness when problems arose. Am I right? (That question was rhetorical. Don't answer. Please.)

4x1 mile cruisers T pace with .25 recovery and pizza hut warm/cool. Our pace for each mile was supposed to be about 7 minutes, with Aubrey at 7:20 and Taylor at 7:30. We got out kinda fast, and the first mile was much quicker for everyone.. Mia and I ran a 6:28. The next one was more relaxed at a 6:44. The third one, Aubrey ran with Mia and I the entire time and we ran a 6:52. Then the last one was just Mia and I and we ran a 6:22, even though the boys got in our way on the last lap. It was a good workout. Felt fine throughout it and was mentally okay too. My breathing kinda started getting bad on the last two laps of the last mile, and at first I tried to calm it down and relax, but then we hit the last lap, and I was like 'what the hey, who cares.' and just kinda pushed through it. Plyos after, and my legs were just kinda dead. It was fun to have Alli there and run with her.. Weird that next year, she's gonna be out there doing what I've been doing for the past four years.. And I'm not.

Easy run in the morning with Stoner and Mia. Felt lovely. Got murdered in the soccer game later.. I recieved 3 mild concussions and infectious wounds on both my knees. Of course, that's my own diagnosis.. I haven't seen a professional about this yet.

Stoner and Mia were late (again) so I ran with Kaelie and Nicole and Liz and Aubrey and  Sally and Roberts. It was grand. Striders after with Liz and Aubrey. Love the girls on our team!

Easy 3 with 4x200s. I think Liz and Kaelie are planning a mutiny because they are so sick of Stoner and Mia being late all the time.. I don't think it's such a bad idea. (: Anywho, the run was lovely. 200's were a little less lovely, but still fine. I just love morning practice (and that's not even a lie).

Eh. Definitely not my best race.. but not my worst either. I started out really well.. didn't get boxed in or anything, and for the first mile-ish I was up there in the top 30. But my legs felt like they were dead. I honestly felt like I was pushing so hard, but wasn't going anywhere.. I kept getting passed. It may have just been because we played such a hard game yesterday and I was still somewhat recovering. Anyway, with like .75 of a mile to go, Mia came up and ran with me and got me going a little faster.. So I passed a few girls there. I still love that course and that race.. but yesterday just wasn't super good.

AM: 4x30 sec F pace w/ 1min rec, 3x800 I pace w/ 2min rec, 3x1000 T pace w/ 1min rec. Pizza hut warm/cool. Well today was just another one of those days when I just didn't want to go to practice. But, I dragged myself there. Started out on the 30 second things, and they were pretty easy. Kinda just ran by Coach and went as fast as he did. The first 800 I was going fairly quickly I felt like, even though I tripped on a rock and the little bendy thingy inside the bottom of my shoe curled up. Just ran with Coach again. The second 800 was the same, felt okay, but a little sickish. Then I decided I needed to run to the bathroom, so I sped over there, thinking we were gonna start our 1000s so they'd wait for me. But when I came back, they were starting another 800! So I hurried over and started on my own. It was harder not knowing where exactly I should be, so by the end I was just catching the back of the group. Then we started our 1000s. Someone decided we should do them Indian style, and at first I was not happy about it. But when we started them, I decided I liked it better that way.. Less mental, more about just staying with the person in front of you. These weren't exactly easy, but I didn't think they were that hard either. By the end of the last 2 of them, I was feeling like we weren't going fast enough, but I was a little hesitant to break the whole Indian line thing.. So I didn't go nearly as fast as I could have. Anyway. It was a fine workout. What I need to figure out is why I can have such good workouts and then have not-so-impressive races.

PM: easy three.. Took us forever cause we were all dead from this morning and we had to stop every ten feet so stoner could stop laughing.

Easy 3 to Arctic Circle. We kept getting scared cause of the lightning.. but it made me super excited for a storm! Striders after.. we ran and screamed at some random people on the field dressed in black. Kinda. Mostly Stoner screamed and the rest of us laughed.

AM: Four with Roberts, Mia, Stoner and Kaelie G! Mia and Sally and I learned an important lesson. Never ever fall behind Stoner and Kaelie! We saw Mrs. Threet.. that was weird. And Stoner and I shoved Roberts and got handfuls of sweat. Ick.

AM: Three with Sally and Liz and Kaelie and Stoner and Mia. During our 200's we saw a giant explosion in the sky and men started raining down on us.. at which point we and the cheerleaders broke into song ("it's raining men! Hallelujah!"). Then the cheerleaders climbed higher so they could see it better, since it's a well known fact that it's impossible to see the sky from the ground. At first it looked like a giant light saber, then it morphed into a black hole, then the East Australian Current. I think we even saw Crush, Squirt, and Nemo. Anyway, that is the end of my tale.

AM: three to Arctic Circle. Ran in front of the guys on the way there. Played some line running game. Felt way good.

PM: three at Sugarhouse. Something weird was going on with my knee and I couldn't run normally for the first half mile-ish. And everytime we went up a hill, my legs just died. That got me kinda worried for the race- I was just kinda hoping the course wouldn't be too hilly. Yeah.. Turns out that was a joke.

RACE: So.. When we got there and started warming up, the JV girls were racing and half of them were walking. Then some guy told us the course, and showed us there were three huge hills we'd have to run up.. Yay. But I was kinda excited. I told myself after Murray that at Herriman if my legs got tired again, I'd just push through it, and I was feeling confident. After some great pre-race cheers, we started the race.. I got out pretty well again, and Stoner and I were right together for the first loop. The first uphill felt fine and we passed a bunch of girls. Then the gimongous downhill, which was pretty intense. Then there was a little hill, and my legs died again, and Stoner took off. But I pushed it still and stayed in my position for a while. Then some Lehi girls passed me and I was like 'what the heck am I doing?' and forced myself to pass them. After the huge downhill again, we got to up the mutha cussa, which was everything I dreamed it would be and much more. I felt like I was walking the thing. I honestly thought for a second that I was going to stop. Then I passed Coach and he told me I needed to go right then. I didn't actually feel like moving much at that particular moment though, so I didn't.. Until we got to the last downhill, which got me going again and I actually made it up the last hill pretty fast, putting a 12 second gap in between me and the girl behind me. So I was pretty happy with the race. I didn't give up, even though my legs tightened up like crazy on every hill. And our team did totally amazing too. So happy with our girls and how hard they've all worked. Awesome trip and awesome race, even though it was the craziest, hardest course EVER.

Ran with Stoner and Mia at about 10:30, cause I had work this morning. We went from Stoner's house out toward the airport.. We weren't sure on exact mileage, and we made a wrong turn at one point, but we were pretty close. It was warmish and we weren't feeling amazing, but we got it done. At the end we had 1 mile hard, so we did that and I kinda just felt like I was floating.. I wasn't really there all the way mentally. Probably because I only got 5 hours of sleep last night. But it was still a good pace and we did it together so.. Good run I guess. Happy to have it done and have the rest of the weekend off.

Well.. Woke up late so I ended up running by myself. And I misunderstood the running blog, and thought we had 3 miles with 2 miles of Indian runs during it. Turns out we had 3 miles THEN two miles of Indian runs,so the team was nowhere to be found on the course to arctic circle. But I ran it pretty fast, cause I was kinda scared of running alone (which I later got in trouble with my dad for doing) When they got back to the school I finished the 200's with them. It was fine. Felt bad for sleeping in.. But I probably need the extra sleep, and it was my first time ever being late to morning practice (this year anyway) so I guess it's okay.

Easy 3 with some striders on the freezing baseball field.. we thought our feet were falling off.

Michigans w/ Pizza Hut warm/cool. So, this morning I woke up and couldn't keep my eyes open. I was honestly a little scared driving to practice. I had to stay up last night after the game to do my math. So this morning, I wasn't expecting to have that great of a workout. I was just so exhausted. My warm up was super slow. When we started our Michigans, Stoner, Mia and I were running together. Throughout the whole first set, I was just dreading the time the pace would get too fast for me to keep up. But it stayed fairly easy for the first set. When we moved onto the track to start our second set, I took the inside and we kinda started picking up the pace (it felt like that anyway.. we might not have been going much faster). The next 3 800's on the warm up loop just kept getting faster.. I was terrified Stoner was gonna leave me, so I kept going faster and she'd come with. On the last 800, we pushed it pretty fast. Then we hit the track and the only thing going through my head was "I'm almost done!" so I just tried to finish as fast as possible. My time ended up being 28:33. I don't know how that compares to years past, but I made A standard. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, and I had a much more positive workout than I expected. Overall, it was pretty good.

AM: Arctic Circle as usual. Didn't run yesterday.. trying to catch up on sleep and get the sickness out of me. Ended up okay.

PM: Race!! Warmed up more than we usually do cause Coach kinda got on our case about it. I was kinda freaking out before the race, which is actually unusual for this season. But the coaches and my mom kinda calmed me down. Then we started the race.. and Stoner and I biffed it cause Mia cut Stoner off and we both tumbled. But we were okay and restarted and all was fine. I was nervous because I don't really like races that we have to start out fast. But it was okay.. except girls were throwing elbows and cutting us off all over the place. I felt like we were going a good pace though. Then all of a sudden six red uniforms passed me and I realized I was running behind the entire team of American Fork. My mom told me to pass them, and I was feeling okay so I passed three of them.. then Coach later told me that by the next time he saw me he wanted me to be ahead of the other three. But by the next time I saw him, it was like 400 meters away from the finish and I still hadn't passed them. So I started kicking and realized I had more left than I thought. So I ended up passing 5 girls at the end. But at the last 50 meters or so, all these people started cheering for this girl to pass me.. I could hear her coming and I started freaking out. Somewhere inside of me, I found the energy to push enough to beat the girl by .3 of a second.. anyway. Turned out to be a pretty positive race, which was nice. Happy with it.

Started out the morning with a workout at Sugar House. We began with a 3 mile warm up and then started into the workout which was 3x(2min hard/1min rec, 1min hard/1min rec, 30 sec hard/30sec rec). We were supposed to regroup during each recovery.. and some of the girls started falling off kinda far so we didn't cover much ground, since most of our recoveries were the wrong way. There are 3 big hills at Sugar House.. and we hit one of them on each of our 2 minuters. That wasn't much fun, and our feet were soaking wet, but other than that, it was a good workout. Then we ran over to the park to watch the JV race.. we got there right as they shot the gun, so that worked out well. Felt really good today.. but I was a little sore and my back still hurts.

Workout. 4x30 sec F pace, 3x 800 I pace, 2x 1000 T pace. All on the track. :P It started out well.. the 30 seconder things were fine. As was the first 800. Then.. I kinda fell apart. My legs hurt so bad! And my breathing went weird, but I think that's more mental.. when something else is going wrong, my breathing goes haywire. Because the inhaler didn't help a ton. So that's my self-diagnosis. Anyway, so my last 2 800s were icky. Not really great at all. The 1000s we did Indian style again- hallelujah. There's no way I woulda stuck in there if we'd done them normally. But they were good.. there was some confusion at a few points, where we weren't sure if we were supposed to pass whoever was in front, because the pace was slowing down. But other than that, they were good. By the end of the second 1000, it was me, Stoner and Mia doing the Indians by ourselves.. that was interesting. Having only three people is kinda fun.. but at the same time it's a little more tiring because you have to push so much more often. Anyway, the workout was okay. Not super pleased with it, but I ended it strong, so it was all right.

Easy 3 with striders.. had a pretty wimpy showing from the girls side today.. there were only six of us. But we had a nice run.. we even broke a record. Striders after were fine too. Something's wrong with my back though.. for like the past month, it's been hurting.. but not awful. Today though, it killed every time I took a step. I don't know if I did something to it, but it's killing me.

So.. kinda frustrated. I got tripped at soccer yesterday and did something funky to my hamstring. I thought I'd be okay during the workout.. if a little slow. But by the time we got to our 3rd lap of the Michigan.. I was 20 or so yards behind. Coach pulled me off the track and had me stretch. And at first I was okay with it.. I don't want to hurt it more or anything. But when everyone started finishing and had such great workouts, I started to get kinda mad. I could have had a really good workout too.. and that's the second not-so-great workout for me this week. I'll ice it tonight and stretch and stuff.. and hope and pray it gets better by tomorrow.

Hamstring was better today.. my soccer coach made me leave practice early yesterday to go talk to Mark, cause I couldn't run very fast. But Mark wasn't there so I went to get some ice.. only there were no ice bags. So I iced later that night and rolled and stretched this morning.. it's feeling better, but is still kinda sore. So I didn't do the 200's, just to be safe. But I'm sure I'll be fine for the game tonight and meet tomorrow. I'll keep stretching and ice more tonight after the game.

Well.. definitely not my best race. I was sick and my back was killing me, so I was already struggling mentally. I just got out there and died. I felt like I couldn't breathe and I was letting girls pass me all over, and I only passed 2 girls on the track. I was super bummed after. Then all of a sudden I couldn't even stay standing anymore. I was super dizzy and shaky. So my dad made me go straight to bed when I got home (well, as soon as he was done lecturing me on how I've done this to myself by doing so much running and soccer on so little sleep and food) and except for work, the car wash, and a math test, I've been confined to the house to rest all weekend. I've slept more this weekend than I have in forever. 8-9 hours of sleep a night and 3-4 hour naps. I'm still sick, but hopefully this helps and gets me back on track for region.