The Renegade

AM: Ran 5.5 on the river trail with Jack. He felt good and I didn't (wasn't too well prepared with sleep and hydration) Averaged 7:30 tho. Then .3 worth of strides.

PM: Tomorrow is the time trial so I just did an easy run to woodruff and did a set of strides in my spikes there. I guess they didn't have to be as intense as they were but oh well, I  was also just doing a series of tests to make sure they worked and fit right, like certain turns at highspeed, and starts. Theyre great. ran back home and that was it. This was at like 4 so it was hot out, and I didn't even bother bringing a shirt, lol.

Time Trial day! So we got to the course and we did a two mile warmup ( I did it in my spikes to make sure it would work here) , then we did our drills and lined up to go. I got out ahead of the pack right from the start and sperated from them right aaway. (would've been nice if Jack was there) So yeah glad I did that to get prepared for the real races this season. I think that being much more experienced witht the 800 now it will be easier to sprint out with the top guys and avoid getting trapped. My philosophy with that is that even if they will pass you within the first quarter and be gone really soon, its better to make people move around you than get stuck and have to get around other people. So the first half mile went by really fast, I think I was at 5:30 average through it. Obviously that would go down, because mile one was a 5:44. I should have set it for half mile splits, but it's all good. I felt really good and imagined I was in the lead at a big invitational and that made me go faster. Anyways looking at my pace on strava it looks like I was pretty up and down in the third half mile (probably because of the turns), so I better work on that. I felt like I had a pretty good finish. I felt pretty strong and powerful, and cruised it in at a decent speed. Would've had an even split if I had somone towing me through it though. This just gets me excited about what I can do with competition. This didn't feel extremely hard; I never went into the well like I have previously in two mile races, and I'm pretty sure I have felt the way I did before I started my kick at that distance into the race during a 5K. Basically I think that with some guts I can run that pace for another mile. Now I just gotta lower that pace so I can 7 seconds faster than that average on a hilly course cough*state*cough. 5:40s would get you 17:00 on the state course and that's been my goal for like half a year now, so with only less-tha-intense tempo work under my belt and lots of miles that will help me later in the season, I think that after hard workouts all season, staying healthy, and a big taper, that's very obtainable goal. :)

When we got back to the school I ran a couple more miles and did some strides on the track.  

Recovery run with Todd and Paul. I introduced them the water lab loop, which they had never un before, so that was fun. Did some strides after that and that's about it for today. I felt tired but I had a reason to. 

So, today I did my first 4 mile tempo ever, and it didn't gotoo well, but I'm not panicking. Warmed up about a mile to Ryan's Place Park and then started at the same place we've done all our other ones. So the group running the four miler (that was there) was me, Damon, Anna (new German exchange student) Kalin, and Davis. So me and Damon and Davis all ran together the whole time, although we were all in a group for the first mile which was kinda cool. I titled this 4 mile tempo fail for a reason. So I felt decent in the first mile but shortly after my shoelace came untied adn I had to stop and tie it the catch up. So I think that affected imy workout the same way it did at the lake, except worse. About a half mile after, my heart rate spiked and ended my chance at a good average. Then we got lost on the part of the course that we've already run like three times before. So we had to kind of back track and we couldn't really focus on the workout because we were trying to figure out where to go, Although I had my watch so at least we could still go off the right distance. By mile 4, I was hurting and well over my lactic threshold. But I just did my best to stay with the guys, which was tough. We decided to just go all the way to the park, which added on a little, but that's okay. They went all the way to where we started, but I just had to stop at the corner cuz i didn't wanna get TOO fatigued. At least I got a hard effort in. Then Damon and Anna and I went on a slightly longer cooldown, and then got our strides in. After practice the team iced in the canal, so that was fun to finally start up again. 

Easy run with Todd on the canal ((coach) Eric turned around early to do a track workout). Felt decent. Definitley better than yesterday. 7:36 average for that. Than I accompied Eric on his recovery jogs and part of his workout (just a 400 of his 2x2 miles) and did some 200s also. (76, 32,30) 

Ran Logan Canyon with Todd and Eric. Pretty good, we ran a part that I've never been on that was kind of cool. I'm happy to get sufficient mileage this week, because I thought I was going to end up dropping it but I'm feeling good. 7:45 average.