Redemption

Easy running and some strides I did some elongated strides at near 400m distance to get my legs moving and test to see if 5k pace still felt comfortable. It did. It felt VERY comfortable. That is something I have tried to work on this season, because in the past I have struggled being able to comfortably run my race paces. This season  I have put time into doing workouts where I run my race pace as smoothly as possible, and it has paid off. Anyways my coach only allowed me to do 2-3 miles today to ensure a great race tomorrow, which will bring my confidence back up. My goal will be to win but I know in our region you're up against top notch 3a competition always, so I can always expect a great challenge. My time goal will be a 16: 10 which will better my last year time by about 45 seconds, which will put me into a great position to reach my time goal for state.

Dixie Invitational: As I was prepping  for the race I saw the girls race go haywire, and girls were running in all sorts of random directions they weren't supposed to be running. So I said to myself: This race is a joke. (First mistake I made). I also quickly found out that D-hills best runners, and Nick Hill (who won SUU) from pine view wasn't racing, and I assumed it was going to be an easy win (Second BIG mistake I made). As the race got going the pace felt REALLY easy and I thought: Should I push hard now and cinch the win, or should I stay comfortable. I chose the latter. (Third mistake I made). As the race entered the last 3/4 of a mile or so I still felt good, and Eric Lambert from Cedar passed me and I had to make another decision (Should I go hard and beat him, or should I let of the pedal and be content with second. Well... lets just say I was a wuss and chose the second. Eric had an awesome race, and was a beast so he deserved to win. As for me, not so much. Two bad races in a row....great I'm turning into a head case. So what can I learn from this race? DON'T ever think a race will be easy!

Afterwards I went home and talked with my Dad (he has a PhD in psychology and is a sports psychologist) he told me that there are two kinds of runners: Trainers and Competitors. Long story short I'm the one that you want to be if you want to train really well, not win races. He said he can help me change my psychology and become a competitor. Hopefully this will work, because it is true I am not competitive enough. I have learned a lot from this race so now it is just about moving forward and putting a new plan to action.

7 miles easy total. Felt tired and unmotivated and a little down still.

AM: Finally got over myself last night and was ready to roll today. By the end I got around 5 miles at pretty comfortable pace, except for I had some chips I had for breakfast starting to sneak up.     PM: Wasn't feeling to good today, but as I got going it turned to be one of my greatest workouts ever. I concentrated on what my dad had taught me the other day about focus and race psychology and I noticed a difference. Coach wanted us to do a pretty tough workout today because she noticed that we weren't finishing well and races and wanted to address that. The workout was: 4*400m w/1-2:00 rest-3 mile Tempo-4*400m w/1-2:00 rest. The 400's started and I wasn't feeling it at first. She wanted us to go fast and we were doing it on a grass field that consisted of a 180 degree turn at one point (because there isn't a single stinking grass field in Hurricane) my splits were: 1:06, 1:07, 1:08, 1:06. Then we got about 5 to 10 minutes of rest and water and then we did a tempo run on the Hurricane XC Course. I was determined to work on what my dad said and focus as if it were a race and cut out all distractions and fears, and just focused on plugging my goal pace for the workout (5:30 pace) I finished the course in 16:13 (5:30 ave, the course is a bit short, 2.9 about, we are thinking of ways to maybe make it a bit longer.) So I ran the course at 5:30 pace. The same pace I raced at Dixie. Just proves the point that I have some work to do in the arena of racing and mentality. Afterwards I felt pretty beat, but not terrible. We started the next 4*400s we were supposed to push hard these ones to practice running fast tired. My first one was a 1:15...way too slow. My next one I was determined to get back to the same pace I ran before the tempo: 1:09 (almost), 3rd one 1:08 (perfect), 4th one I pushed HARD (1:03). Great workout, and I noticed how much a difference focus makes. I am excited for Vegas this Saturday, I heard Pine View was going to go to, so hopefully us region 9ers can show those Nevadans a real race ;)

AM: Only got in a mile because of stinking game day. 

PM: 5 miles easy w/6*200m@5k pace       

Strength Training: Core

Las Vegas Invitational: Overall finish-4th, 1st place small school division. Finally I was able to have a good race! I stayed focused the entire race and pushed HARD! Definitely the hardest I have ever pushed myself in XC. There was over  thousand racers total, and about 286 in the varsity race I think. As the race got started I focused on getting out into a good position because I heard it got hectic in the pack. I meant to get out hard, but I didn't mean to lead. 1st mile- 5:02. (Probably too fast but I felt good still.) Dajour Braxton caught me at the 1.5 mile mark and hung with me for a bit before taking off FAST into the lead. Second mile hurt BAD and I fell to 5th place. (5:20) It got REALLY hot at this point too. On the last mile I started to hurt really really bad but I focused on staying with the guys in front of me. With half a mile left coach told me to catch a kid in red that was a good 60-70m ahead, and I focused on reeling him in and caught him and passed him at the finish to take 4th.  Great race and a great place in such a big meet., I'm glad I'm not a head case anymore, I just have to remember to stay focused more. I came through 3 miles at 15:50 (which is pretty good considering the heat) and finished with a 16:44 because the race was long and about 3.2 miles instead of 3.1. Sadly Nick hill wasn't feeling too great because I was hoping to have a sweet battle with him, but he still had a good race considering, pv ended up winning the large school race. And my team won the Small school race!!!! So region 9 represented well!

AM: 5 miles easy.  

PM: I did a 2 mile light shakeout (school got out early so I had lots of time) before practice, did team warmups, then started the workout. Coach surprised me MAJOR. I expected like 3-4 miles easy, but then coach was like  alright we're doing intervals today. I was feeling exhausted from Saturday, and my legs were pretty sore. We ended up doing 1*1 mile-3*800m-3*400m @5k pace on the course. I was struggling major and Jesse must of been feeling good because he was kicking my butt. We finished and did a .5 mile cooldown. Tomorrow is Hurricane Invite! It might be my only chance to break 15 because I cannot race at cedar invite. I will be in pheonix for a family thing. But my parents said I can run a  race in arizona if I find one. So it turns out I'll probably be racing the Desert Twilight XC festival (which is on  the new Nike Southwest course).

Warmed up for 5.5 miles!!! Coach had me come out and help her out at the course starting at 1 pm all the way until 5:30. She wanted me to run some parts of the course to see if it worked and stuff, and between that and the marking/ribboning I ended up with a FAR too long warmup. Anyways my legs were dead from yesterdays intervals and Saturdays race. I didn't know what to think about today. As the the race started I didn't feel any zip to my stride and my first mile was slower than I wanted. 5:07 according to my GPS. I had two goals for this race: win and go sub 15 (because this is probably my only chance to do it.). On the second mile I started to feel better, but I guess it's because I slowed down 5:20. Spencer Neaville from Dixie was right on my back the entire race and on the last mile I heard somebody cheering for Eric and I thought: Great...Dixie Invite all over again. So I knew I had to make my move then. As I rounded the turn onto the field I looked to the left on saw Eric considerably behind (he did a tough workout yesterday and is prepping more for BYU invite saturday) so I knew I only had to worry about Spencer. I put in a surge and noticed him struggling to respond so I knew I had it if I stayed tough. With about 400-500m left I kicked hard and ended up winning by ten seconds I think with a 14:53 (accomplished both my goals) I saved my watch splits and I ended up getting 2.9 miles and an average pace of 5:08. Which means my last mile would have been around 5 flat. I wished I could figure out my last 400m because it felt FAST I think there is a way to look it up if I connect it to the computer, so I will see if I can find it. I don't feel like I pushed as hard as Vegas, but I was still pretty exhausted both mentally and physically so I don't think that could have been possible anyways. I am pretty glad with how the race went and I ran 50 seconds faster than last year!!! Last year the course was a teeny bit different but I got the same length so it shouldn't really change too much.

AM: 3 miles Recovery        

PM: 7 miles easy total        

Strength Training: Full Body/Core

AM: 4.3 miles easy (turned out to be more of a light fartlek)           

PM: I warmed up a mile and a half before practice along with 4*100m strides, to get my legs moving a bit. When practice started I warmed up with the team, and then we headed a mile to the baseball fields to do our intervals. The workout was 5*1200m@5:00mile pace w/around 3:00 rest between, although for the rest we did workouts with resistance bands or plyos (ended up being 6). The intervals were supposed to be 1200s but I got .66 miles with my watch so it ended up being 2/3 mile repeats (1067m). The first one I struggled major and right from the beginning my legs felt really heavy: 3:30 (5:15 pace). I was worried if I was going to be able to complete the workout because I pushed hard to hit 5:15 pace and my legs were dead. The second one I felt about the same but pushed more to run a 3:26 (5:09 pace). On numbers 3 and 4 I decided I would help the team work together and motivated the varsity guys to stick as a pack and push each other, and we all did very well, I was really impressed how the guys did: 3:31 (5:17 pace) and 3:33 (5:19 pace). On number four I all of sudden loosened up and started feeling pretty good, so I wanted to push number 5 hard. Coach told me to go sub 3:30, and I asked her what she would do if I broke 3 minutes...we both laughed, I had not intentions of breaking 3 minutes and my goal was to run 3:20. As I got going I pushed while making sure I stayed relaxed and surprised myself major with with a 3:06 (4:39 pace)! After that I was pretty beat, but still felt like I hadn't quite finished for the day yet, so I asked coach if I could do a 6th and she said it would be okay, and told me not to go as fast as the 5th one (i had no plans to) I wanted 3:30, but once again surprised myself with a 3:17 (4:55 pace). When I finished I gagged a bit but composed myself enough to not throw up, which was weird because I felt like I pushed hard but not that hard...anyways great workout! I jogged a mile back to the track and then finished up the day with a 2 mile cooldown with my mom and Ky Voorhees.                      

Strength Training: Full Body/Core

I planned on running the course a couple of times easy when I got to Provo but I ended up arriving there much later than expected (Around 10pm). When I got there we still hadn't eaten dinner so I just got in around 2.5 miles with some strides.

BYU XC Invitational- Well when I finished the race I wasn't super happy with how it went until I thought it through a little more. First off this was my 4th race in 11 days!!! I don't really think I could have expected much better than I did, secondly I ran almost 40 seconds faster than last year, and considering the previous comment that's really good improvement I think. So as the race started I wanted  to run a little more conservatively than I have been doing lately (lately I have just been jumping right to the lead or sticking with the leaders) however I still ended up slowing consideraably my second mile even though I still felt basically fresh. So I need to address that problem, but I think for me this season what works best is to simply just gut it out from the start because it seems as if no matter how fast my first mile is, I still slow down the same amount my second mile. Anyways I continued to get passed on the early part of the third mile to where I dropped to about 17 or 18th place. With 1000m to go I started pushing and caught up a bit more only to finish hard on the track in 12th. I felt WAY to fresh the entire time and didn't have a very gutsy race at all. However, when I thought about it, if I am racing 4 times in 11 days along with hard workouts in between, I can't expect much better. So after thinking it through I decided I was happy with the race especially because my legs felt stronger than ever, and I improved a lot from last year with not much effort.

Monday: Hahahaha funny day today. We were doing a long run day so I planned on doing my L pace (6:15). First mile I felt great and I ran 5:50. As I entered the second mile we climbed Arlington hill, and I don't know if it was the extreme heat, the lack of hydration on my part or the hill itself (probably a good mixture of all three.) But I felt absolutely terrible. I stopped at the top of the hill and got some water. This is where a bunch of the varsity guys caught me. We all started running again together and then we ran over to devils throne hill and got some water before we ascended. When I bent down to get a drink everything went black for a couple seconds, but I just shook it off and started running up the hill. About halfway up my legs just completely tightened and wouldn't move. Then Kamryn whizzed by me as I was standing on the hill trying to walk up it. This is also when coach drove by...embarrassing. I looked behind me and saw Ryan who also raced BYU and Kody and they seemed to be struggling just as much as I was so we grouped together and were determined to finish the run. By the time we finished everyone was worried  we died because we took so long but we finished the 8.5 mile hill run (we go up all of the biggest hills in Hurricane) in an excellent one and a half hours....probably the worst workout I have ever ran...but hey at least I finished and am still alive.

After yesterday's run and talking with Sean, we decided I needed a recovery week. Today I actually ended up doing intervals. 3:00 5k pace- 1:00 sprint*4 I think. I didn't worry aout paces I just focused on staying relaxed and helping out the other guys.

Today was more of a fun day, but still a great workout, we ran to different places and did different workouts and sprints around hurricane. Total of about 6-7 miles with warm up and cool down

7 miles trail run, pace wasn't anything great but the trail was pretty tough.

.5 mile warmup/.5 mile cooldown

AM: Game day... :( I just don't understand waking up at 5am to play a game.

PM: Got in maybe a half a mile of running :( Me and my family spent the whole day at the Bodybuilding expo in Las Vegas (my family is all really into bodybuilding). I got home and it was really late, and I would still run but I had just eaten dinner and I do not do well after eating (I often need 5-6 hours after I eat a meal before I can run, I don't know why but that's just how I have always been.) So today was not a very good day for me, but it was supposed to be a recovery week so I guess it's not the worst thing. Technically I was supposed to take Monday off anyways.

Today was fun. I warmed up for about three miles and then prepped the guys for the race. I wasn't supposed to race today but coach signed me up anyway so I just decided I would use it as a workout. We were supposed to stay as a pack the entire race, but right off the bat it didn't work. So me and Jesse were just like screw it. So I paced Jesse to have an awesome race. Meanwhile I felt great! We were averaging 5:30 miles and I felt like I was at a jog. When me and Jesse hit the track I wanted to time my last 300m and see how fast I could close off a decent pace. I took off and started my watch and caught up to this kid from D-hills fast when I went by him he went with me and ended up actually outkicking me! Haha! I closed in 40.5 seconds the last 300m and got outkicked! That kid has wheels! Anyways great workout and it was fun. .5 mile cooldown about was all, because my team has this weird thing where they are ALWAYS in a hurry. But when I got back home Jesse, Isaiah, and I went to the region course and did a light fartlek run of just over 4 miles.

I expected today to be a long run day, but it turned out to be intervals...and a lot of  them. Luckily I love intervals (no sarcasm at all, I really do love them.) We started out w/8*400m @ 5k pace my splits were (1:12, 1:13, 1:11, 1:14, 1:15, 1:13, 1:15, 1:05) The last one hurt because my asthma started to kick in and I was struggling to breath, but still ended up doing pretty well. Then we went and did 10*hill sprints (50m) w/bands exercises. Afterwards we finished with 6*100m (probably 150m) sprints. Great workout a lot of fun. Although today I got a little frustrated with my team, because they were all keeping right with me even though I was pushing hard, and I'm thinking then WHY on earth are they racing 2 minutes slower. I shouldn't get frustrated, but I just know they are all so much better than they race. If only they could realize that. We started with a 1.5 mile warmup and a 1.5 mile cooldown. Also I did a 1.5 mile warmup before practice started to get my legs moving.

We would run to different grass fields around hurricane and do intervals at each one at usually around 5k pace but some of them even as fast as all out. It actually ended up being a pretty tough workout, because the run between the intervals was between 6:00 and 6:30. I finished with some more intervals on the track afterwards and did a cool down later when I got home because I thought I had to hurry and get to young mens. Anyways good workout.

Long run day and it was hot! I think the heat got to me because I felt really sick when I finished, I also pushed really hard this run.

A few easy miles and some strides. Pre race workout.

Race went pretty well, but I finished with way too much left in me. I need to address that 2nd and early part of the third mile. Anyways my time goal was sub 16 so I got that, which makes me happy. But I didn't have a placement goal which explains why  I didn't do to well there, because I didn't have anything to reach for.  However I do know what I want to place at region and state so now I just have to hope that by state all my training comes together and I pull off what I want to accomplish there like I seem to always do at state. I don't think I've ever had a bad race at state championships in either xc or track that I can think of. Now I just have to ensure that I don't start this year :) Anyways no matter  what happens this year, I am proud to say that I have improved as a runner and a person a lot since I was a freshman and I am so greatful for running and for what it has done for me. I hope to always run. I look forward to running in college wherever that may be.

11 miles total today. (One mile was a 5:28 on grass). Nothing else was notable.

Today the workout was 13*400m@1:13 on 3:00 cycle (3:00-interval time=rest). I ran a 1 mile warmup. Then got started. It was tougher at first because I had to weave in out of the valley vista xc team (I'm in pheonix for the week). My times were: 1:11, 1:11, 1:12, 1:10, 1:10, 1:13, 1:08, 1:10, 1:09, 1:10, 1:08, 1:10, :57. My last one I let loose a little and ran a 57, but it was tough because the VV XC team got on the track again so I had to weave through them the last 200m. I was surprised with how comfortably I ran that fast, my 800m is going to be fast this year :) Good workout! Haha one of the Valley vista kids asked me if I was a professional runner. Cooled down 1 mile.               

PM: Didn't end up running, did a weight sessions instead due to dinner.

Strength Training: Swimming

5 miles tempo on grass@ 6:15