Running Blog

Didn't run yesterday- I'm still feeling like crap. Haven't gotten much sleep the past few nights because I can't breathe when I lie down. But I couldn't skip two in a row, especially the long run, so 50 minutes today. We were supposed to run on a trail but I only know two trails and neither sounded fun for a long run so I ran out to Green Canyon Trail and back, which ended up being exactly 50 minutes. I did have to run up a forever long hill to get there though and my calves and arches definitely felt it. Sort of did legs after but I'm just not feeling it this week.  After work today I will be nonstop resting til Monday.

Full drills with Megan (Coach told us we did them perfectly, which was a relief because when we finished and walked over, he was in the middle of lecturing the conference group on how we need to focus on doing drills correctly) then 30 minute easy run down 8th. We talked a little bit more than the last time, so that was a good sign that we're getting more comfortable with each other. Sydney, Heather, and Brooke are all kinda hit-or-miss when it comes to practice due to injuries and class conflicts, so Megan and I are going to be doing a lot of running with just the two of us.

After the run we had 6xstrides and Coach said my form was looking a lot better- he only had to tell me to focus on my arms once. Then he said he had "something special in store for us." My thoughts went immediately to hot fudge sundaes, because I can't think of anything more special than that, but alas. He meant anaerobic circuits. I hated them. Well.. actually, for the most part, they weren't that bad. We had to do 20 seconds of burpees, 20 seconds of high knees, 20 seconds of something that I forgot what they're called, 20 seconds of grasshoppers. Then we did 5 single-leg squats on each leg, 5 pike planks, 5 other kind of planks, and 5 other other kind of planks. All the planks were done on these giant exercise balls that seemed a little unsafe to me (mostly because I kept crashing to the floor). Then we had to do the 20 second things all over again. THEN. This is where I hated it. We did 5 more pike planks, then 5 pendulums. Turns out, I am completely incapable of performing this exercise. It took me years to get 5 because I fell off the stupid ball every half-pendulum. It took me so long that Megan moved on to the next exercise and once Coach got sick of watching me fall, he told me to just go get a drink because Megan was done with the set. Then we had a burnout set where we did normal planks (except not THAT normal because we still had to do them on the dumb ball) for a long time, then switched to a push up plank thing for a shorter time, then did 45 seconds of high knees progression. Then we had to do an 8 minute set of core, and Coach told me to make sure I did a plank set during it because I suck at everything. Those weren't his exact words, but I could see it in his eyes.

So yes. Also on Wednesday I have to meet with the sprint coach so she can help me with my technique on lifting because I also suck at that.

38 minutes on my own- was originally going to be 35 but I got to 17:30 and could see the end of the trail, so I kept going. Which means I was going quite a bit faster than I usually do, because I've never seen the end of the trail before. I actually felt great. It was a really really good run. Legs after, and I think I actually remembered most of the exercises. Hooray.

40 minutes on my own today. It was a weird run. I didn't really want to be running. It felt good though. Got hardly any core in after cause I ran to go meet Janz to do an ice bath. 15 minutes of that. Now to crank out an eight page paper before 10:30 tomorrow morning and then study my rear off for the Praxis.

It was supposed to be hills today but I had the Praxis (good news, I think I passed. Except maybe social studies because they were all APUSH type questions and I burned my reading guides at the end of junior year) so Coach told me to just do 35 minutes. Squeezed it in between the Praxis and my math review. Sorta just pounded it out without thinking too much. It was chilly but felt good. 

I wasn't for sure on what I was supposed to do today cause the workout schedule only had the conference roster girls listed for today. So I just went 35 minutes again, then headed to the track to see if there was actual practice. I didn't see anyone, so it looks like 35 minutes will be it for today. Good news of the day is that we finally got our friend Nate to go on runs every once in a while so maybe he won't pass out every time we play futsal.

50 minutes up Green Canyon with my friend Spencer. We took it nice and slow. My calf kinda tightened up at some points but it was fine otherwise. 

Full drills (in the snow. It was snowing. That is the least okay thing to happen this semester). Then a 40 minute run with Megan down 12th east. today was the most we've ever talked- I even told her The Story of the Egg in Our Microwave, which is even more interesting and mysterious than it sounds. It felt way good and went by way fast too. Near the end, we realized we weren't going to have a full 40 by the time we got back to the track, so we ran around the practice field a bit. As we approached the gate, Megan started picking up the pace- like, almost freshman race style. I was alarmed because I have never enjoyed the tradition of the freshman race, so I sort of just coasted in and she slowed down to run with me. Then we had 6xstrides and core (7, 8 with pull ups, push ups and dips in between). Today was grand.

It was colder today than any place should ever be unless that place is a freezer full of ice cream. Because it was so cold, Coach had to adjust our workout so we wouldn't pull all our muscles and die. So after a 20 minute "warm up" (read: 20 minute shuffle down 8th East, during which our main goal was to keep our fingers from falling off), Sydney, Megan, and I ended up heading down to the XC course for some fartlek/interval sort of things. When we got to the course, we did 7 light strides in an attempt to loosen up as much as possible (ha). Then we did our intervals around the 500 loop. We were supposed to have the same pace throughout (:19 per 100m) We did 3 laps of 200 on, 100 off, which was fine. Then we bumped it up to 300 on, 200 off, and at that point, my breathing went out of control. I blame it partially on the fact that my lungs had turned into small glaciers and partially on the fact that I still haven't done a whole lot of speed work this season. So Coach Spence had me stop at 200m on those loops. Then they kicked it up to 2x500 and for the first one, Coach had me wait at the 300 m mark and do the last 200 m with them. When we finished that one, he told me I could totally do 300 m with them, so I ran out to the 200 m mark and finished the last 300 with them. It felt good, although it was slightly discouraging that I couldn't do the whole thing. Afterward, Coach told us we needed to get out of the cold, so we ran up to the training room and did our cool down on the bikes. Legs afterward. 

My hamstring sorta hurt today, although it may have been because my muscles were tight. Other than that and the bitterly insufferable cold, it was a good workout.

I know I said yeseterday was cold. It was. But today was so much worse. So cold, in fact, that I refused to leave the apartment until it was time to run. I skipped all my classes (I got an 89% on my math test yesterday though so I feel like it was justified). It was windy and horrible- to the extent that when I lifted my foot, I could feel the wind go through my shoe under my arch. My face couldn't even move. Other than that, I felt okay. My calves were tight but that isn't surprising what with the temperature. At one point, I passed hordes of small children and thought "oh, elementary school just got out." Then I got to the school and realized it was a middle school and my mind was blown. I was NOT that small in middle school, I swear. Kids are shrinking. 

7 min set of core after, then 15 minute ice bath with Janz. 

I actually did 40 minutes on the stationary bike (resistance: 3, ramp: 1. I don't know if that means anything to anyone, but that's what the bike told me so I went with it) up in the mezzanine because it was snowing quite a lot outside. I ended up going just over eight miles bike-wise, so I count that as 4.5 running-wise. 

Today was too cold and slippery to do hills so our workout was on the the bikes. 

Bike Fartlek:

15 minute warm-up, 10x30 sec fartleks (resistance 6) w/ 90 sec recovery (resistance 4), 15 minute cool-down (50 minutes)

Anaerobic workout (2 sets):

20 sec squat thrust, 20 sec high knees, 20 sec split jumps, 20 sec grasshoppers

Single leg squats (x6 each leg)

60 sec plank, 60 sec superman

I don't actually like putting 0 mileage up there so since I made it 7 miles on the bike today, that shall be equivalent to four running miles. Also I cheated on the planks because we were supposed to use the exercise balls but the entire tennis team was up in the mezzanine with me and I didn't really feel like making a complete fool of myself so I just did normal planks. But whatever. I'm actually quite impressed with my own dedication, because what with conference and regionals and all, Coach Spence is hardly here so we have to do a lot of workouts and runs on our own and I haven't missed any. Anyone who knew me in high school would know that is quite the accomplishment. Shoutout to myself for being an inspiration to all. 

Just kidding. Don't look up to me. I'm on a track team in Logan, Utah and I don't even own a running jacket (or any warm clothes, for that matter) so I obviously can't be trusted to make important life decisions.

Speaking of which, I have a long run tomorrow morning, so if you don't hear from me, assume I died of hypothermia and tell the authorities to look for my body up Green Canyon.

Crap. I forgot I'm the only one reading this. My body will never be found.

So we didn't actually run up Green Canyon today because it snowed a whole awful lot last night and neither Spencer nor I felt like running in 4 inches of snow (apparently they don't plow trails. Who knew?). So we ran up 12th east and went on a bit of an adventure run instead. We passed 11 deer and my shoes got very wet and soggy. It was a good run though.

Today we have to move stuff from the track to the Laub so we had a run on our own, then we'll do core together later. I went down 8th because I couldn't think of anywhere else to go- Broken Canal will be snowed in and I just ran down 12th on Saturday. But 8th wasn't exactly a fantastic idea either. Everything was covered in ice and snow. At some points, it was covered by ice, snow, and leaves, which is probably the most treacherous situation anyone could dream up. The run itself felt good, actually, but it was pretty slow because I was more worried about keeping myself upright than focusing on speed. Also on the part that goes past the stadium to my apartment, my form was pretty scary. The ice made leaning forward to any extent out of the question, and I couldn't get any traction if I tried to drive my knees. So for that part I ran standing straight up and down and my feet barely left the ground. It was an.. interesting run in that aspect, but it felt really really good. 

35 minute warm up. Conditions are still icy and precarious. 

Anaerobic workout: 25 sec each of burpees, high knees, split jumps, grasshoppers. 8x single leg squats each leg. 6x pike planks, knee bends. 4x single leg bridge lifts each leg. 6x pull ups with the band.

Another set, except with 6x single leg squats, 6x pendulum (instead of knee bends), 6x double leg bridge lifts (instead of single leg), 7x pull ups.

Finished with 45 sec high knee progression.

Talked about blue & white meet, how training over the break will work, and how we're going to handle indoor. I'm quite nervous.

40 minutes on my own. It got up to 39 degrees today so that felt good. There was an awkward moment at the four-way stop where I almost went but so did a car, then we both stopped, then the car went, then all the other cars were waiting for me to go, but I didn't know so I just stood there for a few seconds while everyone stared at me. Then I realized what was happening, so I hurried and ran across the street and, upon reaching the other side, promptly proceeded to get run over by a guy on a bike.

I was supposed to have full core after but after the 8 & 7 minute sets, I somehow ended up laying on my bedroom floor laughing my head off at some lady I found on instagram. Ah well. 

PS I'm slowly starving to death because all the food I own is a few pieces of bread, some peanut butter, and honey. Therefore I have eaten nothing but a sandwich today. Send help.

No run yesterday. Honestly, I don't know why either. I just couldn't make myself. After writing an 8 page paper and stressing about my math quiz, I just wanted to sleep and then go play futsal. So that's what I did. And I feel much better- today was a good day. It was sunny & my math quiz went okay & I found out today that by some odd miracle I was one of five people in my psych class to get 100% on a six page research paper I forgot about and consequently wrote in two hours one night. So hallelujah for making it through the week. 

Today was hills. Buuuut... Sydney had class at 3 and Megan was late so I did them by myself. Which was fine except they were at a different place that I'd never done before (Coach just called them 1500 North hills, so I ran until I found 1500 North and assumed I was in the right place) so I didn't know where to start on the hill or how far up to go or anything.. I didn't even know what the real objective was, so I didn't know about pace either. All I knew was that I had 4 full hills at 1:15 and 4 steep hills at :32. The hill turned out to be a dead end street that ends in a steep dirt hill. So I started at the very bottom of the pavement for the first full one and ran sort of quickly until I got to a black thingy that was sort of where the hill leveled off.. at that point on the first one I was at 1:09, so I went a bit farther than that every time. Then on the steep ones, I first started a bit before it changed from pavement to dirt and ran up to a bush at the top, but I was very under 32 seconds on that one (:24), so I started a bit farther back after that. My third and fourth steep hills were much faster than the other two. 

All in all, it was fine except for not knowing what I was doing, and also on the dirt portion it was extremely slippery because of all the melting snow, so it was hard to get any traction going up that part. 20 minutes warm up, 15 cool down, legs after.

When I woke up this morning, it was raining, which I was way excited about. Janz said it wasn't even cold outside, so I got dressed in a short sleeve shirt and some compression capris and went to go pick Spencer up.. Joke's on me, the rain was actually slushy grossness falling from the sky. So I had to borrow a shirt/jacket thing from Spencer (luckily I'd had the foresight to keep my gloves in my purse just in case) and we went down to the Island to sort of make a run up. We parked my car, ran about  mile, and realized we were completely lost and would never be able to find the car again. We were already going though, so we just kept at it. It was actually a super good run, even though we were soaked and my face was numb. We went through a nature park and found this cool garage thing that looked like it might have aliens or a time machine hidden inside (as far as we could tell, it didn't, but we didn't go inside so it still has sci-fi potential) and discovered that Spencer can run 18 mph (courtesy of one of those annoying flashy signs they put up for cars to discourage speeding). By some miracle, we found my car at the 46 minute mark, at which point we went and got hot chocolate and then I dropped Spencer off at his apartment and I drove home to finish off the run. The last 14 minutes were exceptionally freezing though because I didn't have the jacket anymore so I was just in my t shirt and capris. So, all in all, 60 minutes. It felt really good, despite the freezing wetness that is Logan today.

40 minutes with Maggie, Abbie, and Kenzie. 6x20 sec stride, 70 sec rest throughout the last mile. 

Going home. Hallelujah.

Easy scavenger hunt run w/ PV's team. Probably not a full four miles, but it was fun. I found a dollar, which Alli promptly sold to Coach in exchange for two points. We lost by a mile anyway because half our stuff came from Josie's car. 

Later, I tricked a couple suckers into doing core with me. They were very whiny about it. But now I have to at least be friendly toward Andrew because he did all the minutes and that was the agreement.

Alli and I stayed up quite late last night, and my dog has been breaking into my room every morning (at some point in the few months since I left in August, she has learned to open doors, apparently) and waking me up, so I was a bit tired today. Also I spent a few hours helping my mom get ready for everyone to come over this morning (I made 110 pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. That is a lot of cookies). Anyway, at about one-ish, I decided to go out and get my workout in. It was GORGEOUS weather, because this is St. George and St. George knows how to do Thanksgiving.

Today I had a fartlek workout: 15 min warm-up, 10x60 sec hard w/ 2 min recovery, 10 min cool down. I drove out to the high school because I know all the routes & mileage from there. I decided to do Target/hospital run, without really thinking much about it.. mistake. I forgot that it gets trafficky here. Luckily, I made it through without dying or even having to modify my fartleks at intersections.

My warm-up got me to Sunrise Tires, then I started my fartleks. The first four got me down to the volleyball courts by the hospital (I didn't want to cross the street by Harmons & Zions. It was too busy, so I turned left and ran toward Foremaster. As a side note, Harmons has been redone and looks kind of scary now), then I turned around and did the next six on the way back. I finished exactly at the intersection by Arctic Circle. Somehow, big intersections always came either right before a fartlek or right after, so I never had to stop in the middle of a fartlek to wait for the light. The rest of the way back to the high school took a bit longer than 10 minutes (13, actually) because I was quite tired and also my arches/calves were killing me. I had to stop by the mall to try and stretch. I think I ran a bit farther than 6 miles today (maybe 6.5ish, since we always said 6 was the doctor's office sign) but I don't have a distance watch, so I'm just going with 6.

I saw Ali Jo running up by Green Springs, so maybe Alli and I will run with her tomorrow. I mean, if she wants to. Maybe she hates us. Also maybe Alli will whine enough that I'll kill her and then she can't run. That's been the pattern of our relationship today, so it wouldn't be a surprise. 

I was originally only going to go 40 minutes, but Alli and I met up with Kaylee and she was going 8 miles so I extended my run with her. We went out to the storage units on Telegraph, then back to PV, then out to Arctic Circle and back. My poor calves have been aching since I finished my run yesterday. They still hurt after the run today, plus my quads are starting to ache too. I'll roll and put on some muscle balm stuff today.

Tomorrow will be a real recovery run. My legs can't handle anything more intense than that. 

Easy recovery run with Josie, Ellie, and Alli. Thirty minutes down Sullivan Park Trail. Felt good. 

Hills(8x75 seconds). We were supposed to find a hill like our road hill (gradual until the last 30ish seconds, where it steepens pretty quickly), but all the hills I remembered from high school were pretty steep all the way, except for Old Mans, which aren't steep enough. So, in all my wisdom & common sense, I decided to go out to Icehouse and just run up for 75 seconds, then head back down. I went out with Alli, my mom, my aunt Judy, and Gabbie. Judy wouldn't let us head out on the revegetation path (yeah, yeah, so it's illegal. The entire world runs/rides bikes on it. Maybe not that great of an excuse, but the legal way out there is annoyingly long and steep). So my mom and I did a 20 minute warm up on that trail (Alli threw a small fit at the 11 minute mark, at which point she and my aunt cut across the desert and took a shortcut to Icehouse). When we got to the steep part of the trail, I decided to just start my hills on the way to Icehouse. We did 2 hills on the way there, then met Alli and Judy at the bottom of Icehouse (they'd already done a 3 hill progression thing and decided they were done). I did the six remaining hills up Icehouse, which actually wasn't as steep as I expected.. just really rocky. The second, third, and fourth times up were really good for me- I made it quite far. The fifth one was probably my worst. The last one I got back in the game a little bit. Gabbie was getting quite tired but she refused to stop chasing us up the hill, so my mom skipped one of the hills to keep Gabbie from running up it again. 15 minute cool down & light core.