Redemption

I am still going to be extra cautious this week, especiall with my calf, so I will take this week relatively easy, until I am ABSOLUTELY sure I will not have reocurring problems. However today I felt great and had no issues at all. After school (today was the first day) which consisted of my 2 classes (PE and seminary) I have all year :) Ha! I am so glad I worked so hard my Junior year (full high school schedule, plus 10 college credits per semester) so that now I can just focus on running and excelling in that as well as planning the future. Anyways after school I found Ky Vorhees on the track and I decided to join him in some interval work, and WOW Ky is fit! I was doing 600's with him and me being a distance runner thought I could easily out run him in some 600 intervals. I was wrong. He was pulling off mid- 1:30's easily, meanwhile I was struggling to run 1:40. Afterwards we did some 300's and I got even more embarrassed. In my defense I haven't really done any speed work for over 3 months now, but still... afiter that XC practice started and we did some trail running. Anyways the first race of the season is tomorrow, however it is more a glorified time trial than a race. I am interested to see where I am at, at this point of the year and if the summer of MUCH hard work has truly paid off. I have heard that the weather tomorrow will be less than ideal so if that is the case then my time goal will have to go out the door and I'll have to purely base my fitness on my competitors. Of course the goal is always to win, however, if the race does not play out very favorably and I lose I will not put too much concern into it. I still have all season, and the first race does not make of break the season in any way.

1.5 miles after school with Ky Voorhees. Then we rode over to the meet and I warmed up for I would assume about 2 good solid miles. The race went pretty well I started off and my race plan was to stick with the pack for the 1st mile and then break away. Well I did just that ...kind of. The entire first mile felt like a jog, and the only kid with me was Spencer Neaville from Dixie and I saw no D-hills kids. I was thinking wow! I thought D-hills would give me more of a fight than this (I was honestly a little dissapointed at first) So the second mile I started to get a pretty good lead and I couldn't hear anyone behind me so I think I got a little over confident here. When I finished the second mile and was heading on my 3rd lap I looked behind my shoulder and saw a pack of like 6 desert hills kids right behind me, out of nowhere! I almost wet myself! (sorry TMI) Ha! I was so freaked out so when I hit the track with 300m left I booked it and I was able to hold the lead till the finish. Anyways great race! I am happy with the time I hoped to have won with a little more of a lead than I did, but this was the first time I have ever ran faster the first Cedar meet than I did the previous last years last cedar meet in my career so I am very happy about that. I also have put in much less speed work than I ever have during a summer, so I am very excited to watch my times drop as I progress through the season. Next stop is Highland Invitational! And I hope to dip under 15 minutes there so hopefully all goes well again. Afterwards I cooled down 2 miles. Then when I got back home I felt really good so I ran 3 miles easy tonight.

AM: 3 miles easy (around 7:00 pace I think)

PM: 2 miles before practice, 7 miles Recovery pace during practice.

Hamstrings felt a little tight, but other than that I felt okay.

Strength Training: Upper Body/Core
 (I was hoding a 35 lb plate and I dropped it on my foot, so then I tripped and banged my shin aagainst it and opened up an old scar...not fun.)

AM: My watch is broken so I have no idea how fast I was going...but it felt fast. 5 miles total.

PM: Hill sprints 6*medium (200m?), 3*short (80m?) wow I'm clueless without my watch. Finished with some extra mileage. 8 total.

AM: .5 mile w, 4*800m@5k pace w/100m walk rest,1.5 mile cooldown.   

PM: 1 mile warmup, 3 mile Tempo run doing the region course in 17:12 (stopping my watch at water stops.), 1 mile cooldown. The tempo run felt pretty terrible, my calves killed and I was really dehydrated. I stopped at mile 1.5 for about a minute, and at mile 2.5 for about another:30. I was hoping to not stop, but it was SO hot I needed water pretty bad. However my time was pretty quick. I ran this tempo faster than I raced during both my Freshman and Sophmore year.

4 miles easy later tonight.

Strength Training: Core

Well today I woke up and I stood out of bed and I was hit with an immediate wave of pain in my calves. So I have basically waddled like a penguin for the day. Then my mom saw me and she "grounded" me  from running for the day. She said that she cant let me go running when I can't even walk right. So we went to the lake and did some swimming and 60 minutes of deep water running. I am sad that I did not run today, and it upsets me to get zero miles like this, but if I have learned anything in the short 17 years of my life, it's that: I should always listen to my mom. Hopefully she is right, that by Monday I will be ready to get back in  the full swing of things, and be able to start working harrd again. I guess with the race on tuesday, the hill sprints on thursday, the 800's and the tempo run on friday, it was just to much for my calves to handle. Hopefully next week will be a better week, and my calves will be stronger and ready for more fire :)       Strength Training: Swimming