I am one with the levee and the levee with me

I got beat in a fun run, I can't believe it. From behind, the guy who beat me looked overweight... I guess that's what a baggy T-shirt can do for you. I kept thinking he'd start coming back to me, but after a mile he was pulling away... Bad feeling. Legs didn't feel great today and this course beat me up once again. I've never run well here, I really thought I could go sub-15. Maybe these high school workouts are making me slower. Didn't feel good at all.

Woke up this morning, felt out my foot, and decided I was go for the community race this morning before the high school meet. This is a very cool course, run at the middle school next to Richland High. The middle school sits on top of a long, very steep hill before leveling off to the pancake-flat athletic fields. They run 3 laps, the first is a 1/2 mile loop around the inside of the athletic fields, then laps 2 and 3 take a long, diagonal shot at the hill and circle the school up top before dropping down a long, gradual downhill that levels off just before you hit the street. This is where we do our 3/4 mile hill workouts, and I absolutely love the course.

It was about 30 degrees at the start and I was foolish enough to think I'd be fine in a singlet. I wanted to run sub-15, figured anything under 15:30 would be good considering the recent lapse in training. I got out fast, 72 for the first quarter, felt good, then 2:32 for 1/2 mile, the cold really settling into my chest and legs. I pushed the hill hard but couldn't accelerate at the top of the hill and came through the mile in 5:15. At first I thought my lack of zip was due to a lapse in fitness, but I managed to maintain that pace for the rest of the race. I was alone after 1/4 mile, so it was more of a time trial than anything.

Hit 2 miles at the top of the second hill in 10:35 (5:20), then ran the final downhill mile in 5:12 for a 15:47 final time. A little disappointed with the time, but it's considerably faster than I ran it in high school (16:49 when it was a 5k as a senior). My legs and arms were frozen, and I blame the slower pace on that -- I really felt good otherwise.

In the team race we got thrashed by North Central (US #18 at the time, moved up to #8 afterwards). The score was something like 68-131. Our sophomore ran 15:16, our #2 hit 15:27 (just got done taking the SATs and had the flu last week), #3 15:59 (huge improvement for out other sophomore), the others struggled a bit. Our usual #3 ran terrible for him -- he also took the SAT today and just seemed to be fried. He ran fine later the next week, but on this day, he looked bad. Good things still happening... we have yet to run as we are capable.

Top 2 runners are sick. Again. Fevers and hacking coughs... what does that sound like? Coach is more depressed than I've ever seen him... 

5x2:00 fartleks for the healthy ones, beginning at 5:30 pace and dropping to sub-5. I needed more so I hit the track for a 3200m tempo, figuring 5:15 pace would be a good goal. The wind was moderate today, so I just tried to relax and breathe easy. I reached 1600m in 5:13 and it felt great. I felt quick and relaxed, although my legs were tight. It was cold today, and I couldn't stay warm enough. Very tight in the legs and chest, but aerobically it felt great. I stayed on the same pace till a lap to go, then opened up for the last quarter in 69. 5:04 final 1600 for 10:17 total time. The 69 was close to all-out, my legs and chest just felt too tight to go faster. I'm very happy to hit the goal pace, though.

Added an easy 4 tonight. 

60 min on elliptical, no running today. Figured I'd give my foot a little breather after yesterday's pounding.

40 min elliptical, 40 min running. Felt good about today's effort. The elliptical is making the top of my right knee hurt, I need to work on my quads, get them loosened up. Got to watch half of the BSU-Tulane game, which was cool. It made the time go by so much faster.

League meet today, this one to finalize our league championship. Top 2 runners still sick, so we ran 3-9. Average pace of 3-7 was 16:09... Fantastic result. Especially with #3 feeling like he's on the verge of illness (he had a 103 fever the next day... guess he was right). 15:47, 15:59, 16:13, 16:18, 16:30, 16:40. Fastest course of the year, there are good things going on despite the illnesses. 50 minutes of easy running for me.

Easy 12 from Leslie Groves Park. I set out with a 1:30 run in mind, heading upstream along the river trail to see how far it goes. I got to one of the incomplete nuclear reactors on the Hanford site in 25 min, and continued around the enclosure till I reached 30. Very flat terrain, I think this could make a great standard tempo course. I'll have to measure out miles sometime. Reached my car in 1:03 and added 20 downstream before calling it a day. Figure the average pace was under 7:00, so I'll just round it to 12. Calves are sore, ran forefoot the whole way. Longest run I've done on the balls of my feet, I think my calves are taking it better. I like how it feels, though... we'll see if it causes other problems down the road, but I may run like this forever if it doesn't.

So a quick update so I don't completely forget my training the last few weeks. I hurt something in my foot, not totally sure what, that made me think I was done for awhile. But I've been able to run on it if I forefoot strike, so I'm just trying to finish out the high school season so I can pace our guys in their workouts. Which would be great, except the flu has been wreaking havoc on our guys. Our top 4 runners are all out right now with various forms of flu, bacterial infections... whatever you can think of.

As for myself, I've managed to stay healthy so far, aside from my foot, and I'm managing to stay in decent shape. Today we went up to our old friend, Jump Off Joe, and do a steady 3.8 mile run to the base of the hill, then tempo 3 miles on the way back. I was pacing for our #5 and #6, and #5 was feeling good and jumped out to a good pace early. I hung back with #6 and tried to help him out, but he told me at 1.5m to just catch up to the other, his hamstring was hurting too much to hold the pace. It'd been a nagging injury for him this season. I caught #5 and we finished the last mile together, rounding out a mildly downhill 3 miles in 16:15. This is huge improvement for him, as our very talented #3 ran 16:12 for the same run 2 weeks ago. If we can get the other 4 healthy, I think we still have a chance at a top-3 finish at state. The run felt easy to me, I've increased the amount of tempo work in the last couple weeks and feel like it's really paying off. Foot was okay - no pain during the run, a moderate amount after. Still can't tell whether it's tendon or bone.

11x400m at our course. Coach meant to do 10 but I'm 99% sure he miscounted. Our top 2 are back in action, #4 is coming around, and #3 is still MIA. Started at 75 for the first as sort of a shake-out, then moved from 70 to 60 for the last 10. Averaged 65ish for the whole thing. Foot feels better today than during the last 400m workout. Encouraging.

I'll have to measure this sometime, calling it 11 for now. Ran a loop down GW Way to the river trail and back up to my apartment. 1:16:58 total time, figuring I was running a little under 7:00 pace, rounding down to 11 miles for the day. Felt tight all over, especially the hammies. I'll have to work on my legs a little, maybe getting rid of some of the tightness can help my foot.

No miles, resting my foot.

Districts today in Wenatchee. Awesome town to run in, the Columbia river runs right through the middle, long sloping hills on either side. The race was in a park next to the river with a nice river trail that I got some extra time for myself on.

Looks like we could only get away with laying down sick for so long. We ran all of our top 7 and barely squeaked through to regionals next week. By about 25 points. It'll be interesting to see if we can pull together to grab one of the state berths next week. I think if we can buy ourselves that extra week, we'll be able to place top 4 at state.

We found out our #5 is anemic (ferritin count was 20), which explains his excessive fatigue lately. That rounds out our entire scoring team as being down and out the last week... I hoped they'd do better today, but we looked awful.

30 minutes easy by myself downriver on the river trail. Ran flat footed the whole way, testing out to see how things are feeling. A little sore, but it doesn't feel serious anymore. Maybe I won't have to take time off.

4 easy miles down one of the canal. Averaged 6:26 pace with one of the varsity guys.