C Mantz Running

AM-4 easy miles

PM-3x2 mile tempo. 3 min recovery between. Felt good in the first ones, but a mile into the last one my legs just hurt and I faded pretty hard. 

5 with Clayson, then 5.5 doing the shoe study

16 miles for the long run. I felt really good until the last two miles, but still held strong and had fun. I’ve been a bit annoyed with long runs because I’ve had to be careful not going too hard before a race.  So today I didn’t kill myself, but I didn’t hold myself back. There was a good group that went quick earlier on; however the last 7 miles were just Clayson, Matt and I. Splits were 6:17, 6:00, 5:56, 5:41, 5:35, 5:37, 5:36, 5:45, 5:28, 5:21, 5:29, 5:22, 5:15, 5:20, 5:12, 5:23.  5:35 average. After we had breakfast at Matt’s home. 

1.5 miles as part of the study. 

AM-4 easy miles

PM-12 miles then strides after. Felt pretty good. 

AM-4 easy miles with Kramer. 

PM-1200 repeats. It wasn’t a very hard workout, but I wasn’t able to go too fast today. 3:20, 3:19, 3,18, 3:17

10 miles. Slow but I felt pretty sick. Not sure what it was. I think it was something I ate.

AM-4 easy miles with Kramer and Talem.

PM-8x400 at 60, 61, 62, 60, 61, 60, then I started the next one but just couldn’t get moving and I gave up. Not sure what it was, but I mentally just couldn’t finish the last two. After a four mile cool down I went back on the track and ran two more in 59 and 60. 

10 easy miles. Stomache hurt nearly the whole time. Not sure what’s up, but at least it was an easy day. 

Long run, felt great, averaged 5:49 pace. After we had breakfast at Brayden’s house and it was pretty fantastic. 

AM-4 easy miles

PM-12 miles and then I went to the track and did 5 strides.  Felt significantly better than last week. 

AM-4 easy miles with Talem and Kramer. 

PM-8X1000m at Intramural field with 60 sec. rest.  I wasn't feeling too good before this workout, but I was going to do my best just to stick with Kramer and Clayton.  We hit 3:04, 3:04, 3:04, 3:03, 3:00, 2:59, 2:56, 2:53.  At the start of the workout, coach said we would do atleast 8 repeats, but I was expecting to do ten.  After 5, Coach said we only had 3 left.  That gave me a bit of a second wind.  For the majority of them Clayton would lead the first half, then I would lead the second half.  Great workout for me, I feel like it's been a while since I've had a workout where I felt this strong. 

10 easy miles. I felt pretty terrible. Stomache hurt quite a bit. However I still finished the run, so that’s a plus.

AM-4 easy miles

PM-10, 5, 3, 2, 1 fartlek. With equal rest except on the 10 we only got 5 minutes. Not sure on overall paces, but we ran through two miles at 9:54, and on the 5 minute we went through the mile at 4:33. Pretty good for running on the road. After the 10 minute the rest felt so easy, but we were going 6 minute pace, which is a bit quicker than necessary. I felt really good though, so that’s two good workouts in this week! 

10 easy miles with a few of the guys on the team. Today is our "spring break," so after I made the drive back to Logan.  

Long run today. I didn't want to run alone, and lucky enough for me, the Utah State runners let me run with them.  It was a nice run, the pace wasn't as quick as ours usually are in Provo, but it was worth it to have people to run with to help me finish the run.  I have a lot of respect for people that can run 17 miles or more completely solo.  

20 km easy and then some strides. 

AM-4 easy miles

PM-Michigan workout.  It was pretty tough, as expected.  However, I remember hurting more the last time we did this, so that's a good sign.  Mile on the track was 4:27; however, our last 800m was in 2:10-11, so that made it hurt quite a bit more. First mile on grass was in 5:03.  It's very different switching from 4:20 pace to 5:00 pace.  It makes 5 min. pace seem foreign because it still takes a considerable amount of energy, but not near as much as 4:20 pace.  1200m was 3:18.  Next mile was 5:03 again.  800m was 2:11. Next mile was 4:56.  400m was in 60 (went out in 31-32, then closed fast), last mile was in 4:49 for me.  During the last grass mile I was behind Clayton Young and Connor McMillan and trying to hang on.  I kept telling myself that these guys were all-americans in track, and that if I could just hang on to them, I might be able to be an all-american this year.  Sadly they dropped me still, but it's still cool to do workouts with guys that are so good.  

AM-4 easy miles

PM-10 easy miles with strides after with John Harper. 

AM- 4 easy miles. Ran into someone who I had a class with last semester and ran with him for 3 of those miles.

PM-10 miles. 2x(mile+800) with 1:1 rest. I felt pretty tired, but just tried to hang on. 4:28, 2:09, 4:27, 2:08. 

10 easy miles.  I felt pretty good.  Quite a bit better than the past few days.  

Long run today.  I felt pretty good, felt relaxed the whole way.  5:52 pace per mile. Pretty tired now, but it's been a good week.  

AM-4 easy miles

PM-3x800, 2x400. 800s were supposed to be 2:12, 2:10, 2:08. We went 2:11, 2:09, and 2:06. 400s were supposed to be 60-62. We hit 59, 57. 

AM-4 easy miles

PM-10 miles and some strides on the track.

2X400m at 64 and 65, then 2x200m at 27.  Felt pretty good.  I'm stoked to be racing again this weekend.  

Ran to the track and did strides

Good race today. Wanted to make our top ten board at BYU, but missed it by just a second. Got the regional qualifying mark as well, so I’m excited to see what the future holds.

Went for about ten minute shakeout with Dallin, Clayton, and Clayson around 2.  I felt pretty good.  A bit sluggish, but legs were ready. Throughout the day I tried my best to relax by doing homework and studying. At 8 PM Clayton and I drove to the meet and watched Clayson race.  Leading up to the race we got to watch a lot of our guys run super well.  Many of them had breakthrough track races and they got me super excited to race.  I feel bad for singling some out because we had most of our team run super well, but Garrett Marsing and Matt owens both threw down some huge PRs in the steeplechase.  Matt, quite unexpectadly ran 8:39. For a guy who was injured most of the indoor track season and in Februrary, that's pretty amazing. Put that on top of him being a redshirt freshman, and it's even more so.

Anyway, I knew I was in good shape and was ready to race fast because nearly everyone I trained with was doing fantastic. \ I had a goal of coming into this race of running 28:45, but if that didn't happen, getting under 28:56(tenth place on the BYU top-ten board, which even Rory and McMilan haven't made yet), or 29 minutes. But all-in-all, I wanted to make sure I qualified.  Having all these goal times for one race is something that I don't recommend, as it wasn't good for me during the race. 

Race: Warmed up with Clayton for two miles, got out on the track, talked with Jerrel a bit, then lined up at the line.  I felt really relaxed. The gun went off and I had no trouble fighting for position.  A runner for Tulsa and another from Portland and I just stuck in the back.  The first lap was by far the easiest. I kept telling myself to relax and focus on the last mile.  I was in last place and came through the first lap around 1:12.  3 seconds slower than 28:45 pace.  I just took no thought of it and told myself to relax. Then we ran a 68 next lap(2:20), then continued close that pace until the 1600m. I felt good, had the space I preferred(I had lane one and didn't have to fight for anything), and was just enjoying it.  The next 1600m had the pace settle in around 69.X seconds per lap and we were running just a tad under 4:40 for it.  I just told myself that I felt 100 times better than the last time I raced a 10km on a track, so just stay on pace. 

At about lap 10, I started to worry a bit.  My right foot started to hurt.  A lot.  This is where my mindest, that I had sadly preparred myself for changed.  I told myself just stay in here and get that regional qualifier. That's all you need.  A for sure regional qualifier is around 29:30, so about 45 seconds slower than my goal.  We hit 5km and I was still feeling good though.  Somewhere around here I decided to make a pass.  Immediately after I regretted it.  No one was going to be as nice to me as I was to them earlier and let me to the inside lane.  I thought about slowing down and letting 3 or 4 guys get ahead so I could run on the rail again, but decided against it. I eventually found a small gap between two runners and cut in.  I kept relaxing, just seeing us run 69.X each lap.  At 6km I started doubting I could do this, even though I felt relaxed and was in good positioning.  At 3200m to go I saw I needed to run a 9:21 about to run under 29 minutes.  Even though my body felt great (other than my foot which felt like I was walking on coals), I was scared to go for anything faster.  Somewhere around here a gap formed and there became 2 packs.  or lines may be a better description as we were all running single file for the most part.  I noticed it too late and told myself that I was too far behind the lead of the second line to get to the first.  I should've just tried moving to the first line.  With 6 laps to go, I realized that I only needed to run 75s to qualify, and told myself to just go for 72s.  If I ran 72s I would finish at 29:10, which isn't a bad time, so I decided to go for that. Around here I was leading a group of guys, one of them was Dillon Maggard who had told me before the race his goal was to just qualify for regionals and run relaxed.  He asked me if I wanted to work together, but I declined due to hoping I would(and could) run faster. Well, it was cool that we did end up running together. Anyway I passed a few guys who had fallen off pretty hard, but I was running around 71s to 72s.  With two laps to go I could see that sub-29 goal leaving sight.  With 400m to go, I realized I only needed to run a 66 to go under 29 minutes.  A 66 isn't hard. I ran that in practice on Wednesday and it felt super easy.  So I sped it up moderately.  A guy from Air Force, one from Portland, and Dillon passed me with about 300m to go.  I was like, eh, oh well, until I had about 100m to go and realized I could still go under 29 minutes.  I felt great.  So I kicked it in.  On the curve I passed Dillon, who said something to me (I think he apologized for passing me and making me pass him on the curve, but I'm not 100% sure), and then had the thought of "oh crap, Rory is going to give me a hard time for letting this Portland guy outkick me," and tried to speed it up, but he already had such a good lead on me, and I just couldn't catch up. I crossed the line seeing 28:57, and was pretty happy. 

I wasn't really out of breath at all, and immediately started a conversation with the Air force guy who passed me after seeing him throw up right in front of me.  After I talked with Jerrel as we were leaving the track and my foot(which I had forgotten a bit about) felt terrible. It was similar to the last time I raced a 10km on a track, but this time the bottom of my foot hurt the most.  It felt like the skin on the bottom had rubbed away completely.  It hurt.  Later I had the trainer look at it, and sure enough, two square inches were rubbed raw.  After taking off my shoes, it hurt even more.  After it got taped up and stuff I tried to cool down, but it hurt, so I decided to put it off and cool down with Dallin.  His race was a lot of fun to watch as he's been injured for nearly a full two years and he came back and ran a personal best of 29:17. After I cooled down with him.  

Long run. The first 5.5 or so were pretty uphill on a trail. We went from about 300 feet in elevation to about 1700 feet. This wasn’t really my favorite run. Foot was in a good amount of pain even though it was all taped up. The trainer said it should be good by Monday. There were some beautiful views at the top of the mountain though.