The Renegade

Mile repeats today, same drill as last time, same place, but with an extra 800m tagged on. Splits were 6:05, 6:03, 6:06, 5:57, 2:35 (for 800). This time I wore my trainers (Pegs) for the first one which made me feel really slow, so then I just changed into my flats after that. We had a nice pack going for most of these. Stayed in front of Austin for every one, which was surprising.  So I guess you could say I felt decent, I just need to strengthen my left leg a little more by doing calf raises on a step. But yeah, I felt really smooth. The 800 tag didn't feel smooth just because of how fast it was, but it would've if my leg was stronger. Good three mile cooldown, including strides. 

Good little pre-meet run on the river trail. It had been raining all day and so it was cool out, great for a run. The last time I did that run with that weather, it was with Mark Summers in late May, the second day of my cross country training process. That feels like an eternity ago. Crazy. Cache-Bod tomorrow, I'm actually excited that the weather won't be perfect, it'll be cool at least, but also worse conditions just gets me excited.

So this was somewhat emotional for me seeing that it's my last time racing on the course I've raced on most. I'm just thankful that it was a PR, and a big one, even if it's not as fast as I envisioned running on it my senior year, ideally, in my mind in the past, I would have liked for my final time to be low 17's or faster, but I'm still sacrificing racing well during the season so I can race amazing in the post regular season (Region and State). The weather was really bad that morning, but then it got better later, and it didn't rain at all during the meet. Got in a mile and a half warmup with the varsity guys and then we were on the line soon. I didn't worry too much about getting out fast, so I didn't psych myself out before it started. The gun went off, and 300m in, 6 of the Logan guys were in the very back of the pack. I looked behind me and I was super surprised at how little of a buffer zone there was between me and last place. But I stuck right behind Austin and we started moving up together. Stuck behind all the way through the two mile mark. They had to change the course up so it didn't hit the soft dirt (now mud) part. Befpre I get too far, Mile 1 was a 5:34, which is most likely the fastest I've ever started a cross country race. Mile 2 was 5:47, but we hadn't been passed up by anybody, only moved up. At the 2 mile mark, Austin started to pull away, and picked people off, and I picked them off eventually too. Even passed two Mt. Crest guys, and I guess I felt cool doing that because it means I could be on the varsity squad of a decent 5A team. Anyways, I got behind this Bear River kid I had never seen before, and tried to pass him but never did, he pulled away in the last straight. Did pass a Box Elder kid. Mile 3 was 5:47, last .1 was 4:50 pace. That's the first time this season that my watch has picked up a full 5K. This course is longer than it was at Aggie, which made me even happier when I found out I PR"d by nearly 30 seconds. Austin passed about 3 more people after he dropped me and ran 17:35. So I guess I would have run about that if this was the same course on a dry day. The final curve on the grass was terribly soggy, and it got my socks soaked in a matter of seconds. But yeah, I guess I'm good with that, I was just really sad that it's my last Cache-Box (with the same weather conditions as my first, ironically) and my last race on this course. I guess I was pretty dissapointed that I didn't medal, because I always thought I would medal at Cache-Box. The team didn't do well, we got dead last, but we had some tough races, and Jack was ordered to hold back a little on this race so he doesn't get a butt cramp. Average pace was 5:40. That's the same pace that I want to run at state in 5 weeks. I believe with all my heart that I can do it, I've got a lot more speedwork ahead, and I havn't dropped any mileage since the season started. Once I get my speed on and drop my mileage, that goal of sub 17:00 at state is going to be CRUSHED, MARK MY WORDS. 

Pretty decent recovery run. It was still nice and cool and overcast, so that was great. It was actually quite pretty. Ran from the school to to the Nature Park, grazed Cliffside, went through a park in the Island area that coach said we could do repeats at, then went to the top of canal and turned around. 7:44 average. 

Great tempo today. The sun was out but it was still pretty cool. we ran it at the usual local place, "River-Prov", and I ran the four mile course at my fastest I ever have by a second per mile (6:27) Paul ran with me the whole time, he was feeling really good. Ran 6:36, 6:37, 6:28, 6:04.  I was super surprised when I saw that we closed with a 6:04, I knew that we picked it up, but I didn't know that it was by that much. Anyways, I felt decent, It'll be nice when I start seeing a noticable improvement on this tempo, probably when I sorta start to taper. 

BEST RUN EVER! We started at like 7 from a team members house where we would have breakfast after. Ran with Paul, and Todd and Aidan. His house is in the island area, so it was a great place to run from. We got on the Canal Trail, than went up the university up the big hill with the wind at out backs, ran all the way past Lundstrom, took another canal trail up to Green Canyon, turned around at the second parking lot, got on Bonneville, took a left and trespassed on the Highline Trail (by now it was just Paul and I), got to the end of that, turned around and ran straight back to Hayden's house. At this point I had 12 miles on my watch. Ate a light breakfast, and decided to run a mile and a half to Merlin Olsen Park and watch so TOU Marathon action, did some more running around there, and ended up getting almost 16 miles! And the whole time I felt awesome, I don't know what drug I was high on. The first 12 miles were run without one little stop. 7:34 average, which I usually don't get on shorter runs. This has gotta be the best run I've ever been on. Since I'm now at 50 miles this wee, I think I run 40 next week to even it out, and be somewhat fresh for Bob Firman, because if there is any regular season meet to do really good at, it's that one. Pumped for next Saturday!