Running Blog

We had our first track workout today. 20 minute warm up with Megan, Heather, and Brooke (much more chatty than usual). Then a continuous warm-up thing (four laps on the track of 100 stride, 100 easy). Then a quick drink of water and we began the actual workout. 2x500 @ 1:38-1:40 pace to begin. These felt fine. The pace isn't hard; it's just enough to get you tired for what's coming. Then we had 4x200 of 17 seconds for the first 100, then all-out for the second 100. Let me tell you, the days when I could stick with the sprinters for a 10x200 workout are long gone. These were HARD. Megan destroyed me. It feels good to get some speed in, but it sucks realizing how far away I am from where I was. I talked to Coach Spence, and he told me about when he took a break from running in college because of an injury, and he said the training coming back into it was the hardest training he's ever done. Which makes me feel better about my out-of-shapeness, but also forces me to realize what the road ahead looks like. I'm just gonna have to tough it out for this season. 12 minute cool down around the practice field afterward, because it was already dark.

Easy run with Janz down Broken Canal. It was cold, so I wore a long sleeve with a short sleeve on top, but then I was kinda hot so I had to roll up my sleeves.. It was still cold enough to make it hard to breathe, though. The cold air kills my lungs. It's like I can't get used to it. Also my calves are still somewhat sore and my knee randomly hurt today for no apparent reason. I think I'm dying. Chalk it up to the fact that it's the end of the semester, which has been known to cause spontaneous aches, injuries, and death.

Easy run on my own.. it was quite slow. I wasn't in the mood to run, but I had to because we have the Blue & White meet later that I have to go help at. By some miracle, it's been warmish lately with no snow since two weeks ago. Hallelujah.

55 minutes with Garrett. Tried to do the hill but a dumptruck came and parked right in the way.

4x long hill at 1:20-1:24, 4x short hill at :35. Times were 1:19, 1:26, 1:26, 1:24, :33, :28, :28, :29.

40 minutes easy at like 10 AM. Two finals today. Bleh.

Gah. So this past week has been insane, but after three finals and two papers in two days, I am officially done with the semester. Hallelujah. Now I just wait for my math final score to get put in the computer. Pray for me.

Anyway, despite the craziness, for the most part, I got all my runs in. Also I found out last week that I've been doing the wrong 1500 N. hill the whole time (you'd think that would be hard to mess up, considering we refer to it by the name of the street it's on). But today I went and did it on the real one. I did 4xlong hill at 1:15-1:18 and 4x short hill at :35-38. I don't remember my long hill times but my short hills went :38, :36, :34, :31. Light core after. 

Home! Finally all the craziness is done. Got an 86 on my math final, which definitely qualifies as some sort of miracle.. Thank heavens for it though because I get to keep my scholarship. Anyhow, I went out to Chuckawalla today. It was fun to run out there.. lots of memories on the old Trail Thursday trails. At some point I'll call up Mia and we'll go run together. Light core after.

60 minutes. I did my long run today because I don't know what our speed workout is for the week. Started at mi casa, ran down GS Drive, up Telegraph, past the cemetery, under the overpass, past the fire station and through Quail Ridge back to home. It's the same loop I usually do for long runs in St. George. I always start out fine, but feel trashed by the time I get to Quail Ridge. I'm glad to be done with it. I'll probably do the track workout tomorrow, but Coach Spence won't text me back so.. guess we'll see.

Coach finally texted me back last night so I knew what the workout was today. 10x60 sec fartlek, 2 min recovery. I decided to do it on the track today even though it's an easy one to do on the roads, just so I could get more track time before meets start. Also it's easier to measure distance that way (although hopefully come Christmastime I'll have a watch to do that for me. Fingers crossed). I warmed up 15 minutes to Harts and back, then changed into my flats and started on the workout. It's not an incredibly hard one because of the double recovery, but it does get you tired and by the second half of the workout I was soccer jogging pretty hardcore during the recoveries (Coach Spence calls it a shuffle jog, but we all know it's the exact same thing). I cooled down 10 minutes on the track in my trainers. Super nice to have my workout done so early in the day. Kaylee will be in town next week so we can run together.

Starbucks in the dark with Kaylee. She always goes at a quick pace. Then when I got home I did an 8 set and a 5 set of core, plus legs. I even powered my way through the wall-sit and it didn't even feel bad. Tomorrow I may do a workout, but I also might do another easy run and do the workout on Wednesday.

Easy run with Mia. Talked about anything and everything. It was grand. 8 & 5 minute sets of core after. 

2 mile warm up. 2x(6x20 sec up, 10 sec down), 1x1:15 up on Sunrise. 1 mile cool down. Legs and light core after.

Easy 40 minutes with Mia from Nisson Park out to the Maverick on Parkway and back. Light core after. 

Super good day today. The weather was fantastic. I did my long run today and am saving the fartlek workout for tomorrow. I started at the high school and did Foremaster loop. Doing the entire Sunrise hill, even just once, nearly killed me. But Riverside Drive and whatever it's called when it goes up past Jumpin Jacks wasn't nearly as bad as I remember it (although that could be because I remember sophomore year when we were forced to do tempos with the boys up that road). I got back to the high school and wasn't to 60 minutes yet so I went up past the Costco light a little bit, then turned around and when I got back from that I still wasn't at 60 so I went over to Sandstone and back and finally hit the hour mark at my car. Light core and legs after. 

Workout. Not so great. 2 mile warm up on DI loop. 1 mile continuous warm up on the track. 1x(500,400) @ 20 sec/100 with long recovery jogs in between. 1x200 all out. Should have done more 200s, but just wasn't feeling up to it. It is hard to get back in this mentally, because I think I'm just so afraid I won't be able to do it. I actually got nervous before my 500 & 400. Like, race day nervous. I wanted to throw up. And I was alone in the whole freaking stadium-- I could have run 8:00 pace on the repeats and no one would have known. Also, the pace wasn't even hard. But I was terrified. Splits ended up being 1:40 (right on) and 1:17 (a bit fast). Still didn't feel great about it. Bleh.

Started at Sullivan Park around 11 AM. Went down the river trail and followed it out to where it connects to the half marathon course. Lots of memories there. I connected out to the Dam Road and finished the loop down Washington Fields Drive. Felt super good, except for a small sideache. The weather was beautiful. Only 4 minutes of core after.

Went at like 10 PM with Kaylee. Started at Walmart and headed down Telegraph (the side with a sidewalk, in case you were wondering. I have a feeling that Kaylee makes safer decisions when I make them for her. I don't know this for sure, but the fact that she wore a dark gray shirt to go on a night time run gives me a pretty good idea.). We hit two miles at almost exactly the Washington Parkway turn. It was a super good run- felt way good. We talked the whole time. It's so good to run with Kaylee again.

15 minute warm up with the PVXC team as they did their run. 6x Ice House at 1:15. It was tough. 15 min cool down.

Opened presents, programmed Alli's and my mom's new phones, then threw on all my new running stuff (Garmin included) and dragged Alli on a run with me. Also we took the dog, which is my Christmas present to her because it's a downright pain in the butt. She got a new leash though, which lets her run like 20 feet ahead of me before she yanks me off my feet, so that was nice. We did a small 3 mile loop (it took years because the dog kept stopping and Alli wanted to go "really really slow"), then I dropped Alli and the dog off at the house and finished to 40 minutes. I set all kinds of new records on my watch, which is always nice, even when the original record is 0. And I really did go exactly 4.5 miles, which is good to know, because that's what I've been putting for all my 40 minute runs up to this point. Now I get to eat waffles and enjoy Christmas. 

15 min warm up, 10x(60 sec fartlek, 2 min recovery), 10 minute cool down. I did my Telegraph/fire station loop and it ended up being the perfect length. It was a decent workout, but I am exhausted. Thankful I only have a long run left this week. 

I was going to run from my house to Sullivan Park and back for 8 miles, my longest run of the season so far, but I wore some of the new running tights I got for Christmas (they're an ugly maroon, but all the others were in the wash) and they were a nightmare. They're just a weird fit, and the fabric sucks, so they fit fine until I actually started running, then all of a sudden they were far too short. Short pants are the worst thing in the whole world (and I know a lot about that, because I was a rather short person until sophomore year, when I suddenly grew 8 inches and thus had no dress-code appropriate clothing to wear, because they do not make pants to fit giraffe legs). Anyway, the tights kept bunching all weird around my knees and I had to stop every mile or so to fix them and I got so fed up with them that I turned around at 30 minutes rather than 4 miles. Ended up being a good thing, because as they bunched around my knees they also rubbed them weird so by mile 6 the sides of my knees were chafing. Odd. It was an okay run though. 7 miles in 61 minutes for an overall pace of 8:45. Not fantastic, but decent. I think I will do core now, seeing as I haven't all week.

40 minutes with Mia. I was pretty proud of her for making it 5 miles in 40 minutes, because she didn't feel too great & hasn't been running regularly. It was fun to talk with her and stuff though. I felt fantastic, actually. We did Target run, and my watch actually matched the mileage we ran for that run in high school (1.5 at Arctic Circle, 2 at Starbucks, etc). I'm always surprised when that happens, ever since Sierra revealed to me the lie that is single double church run. So congrats, Coach. You didn't lie about this one.

Today was a relax-at-home-and-watch-movies day for my family, and Mia's and my run kinda followed that pattern. We went out to Chuckawalla and ran 10-ish average pace for 40 minutes with my dog. It felt good, mostly. My stomach kinda hurt, and Gabbie nearly killed me while I tried to restrain her from eating a small dog, but it was good overall. Now my dad is listening to "Mandy" by Barry Manilow or whatever and the memories are just flooding back-- freakin boys team.

Last run of the year- it was fantastic. 9x60 sec fartlek workout (we're supposed to have lower mileage this week). I warmed up 18 minutes to the desert-- it's all bulldozed! A trail that I ran on as recently as Thanksgiving break now just ends halfway to the reserve. It's all been flattened. It makes me so so sad. Anyway, I warmed up to the top of the baby hill on Middleton Powerline trail, then started my fartleks. I realized pretty quickly that the trail I was on was going to end (at the water tower) before I got enough fartleks in, so I turned on another trail that heads out in the direction of Middleton. As I was going, I was thinking: "this looks so familiar!" THEN I REALIZED. It was the same trail we ran on a few summers back on a Friday straight from the depths of heck. We started at Middleton Park and headed out into the desert and nearly died of heat exhaustion + boredom-- I had NO IDEA the Middleton Hell Trail connected to my desert. It was much more pleasant today than it was that day in the summer so long ago. I was originally only going to do 8 fartleks but I felt so good and my final one was pretty much all downhill, so I decided to do an extra for good measure. Cooled down 10 minutes to mi casa.

Also Mia and I went to Dutchman's and Mia is 120% sure we saw Coach Roberts' wife there because we watched her get into a minivan with a flower air freshener hanging from the mirror and evidently "that's totally them." Whatever.