Step by step, mile by mile

Grant basically broke his wrist last night, and I drove him to the E.R. . Was there until 2:30 AM. Decided to do my easy run of the day because I'm not waking up at 6 AM for the workout. So 5 miles @ 1 AM.

PM - First real workout in quite a while to mark the month of the grind! 4 mile W/U, 8x200 on the fields w/ equal recovery, 2.5 C/D. Ran a lot of the warmup and cooldown on grass. Ate probably 2 pounds of refried beans, tortillas, and something red velvet for lunch, and that haunt me worse than Luigi's Mansion in the workout. I think I'm going adhere to a pretty strict diet 6 days a week, and have Thursday's as an off day. Which basically means more than 1500 calories a day for me lol. Anyway splits for the 200's went 32, 32, 33, 31, 32, 32, 32, 29. It was 104 outside with humidity, and that plus grass hills plus my lunch made for a struggle. Still, it's a start. Excited to start the quick stuff of September! I built a good base of about 400 miles in August, and now I'm ready to put in some serious speed and be in great shape by October 1rst. Let's do this!!

AM - 7. Slept in so had to go to classes first, so it was pretty hot out. Quads were tired from yesterday, but the pace wasn't too shabby.

Pm - Ran to the rec center, did a mile with strides on the straights inside, did my core, ran back home.

The peroneal on my right ankle stopped hurting yesterday!! And that afternoon my left peroneal started getting sharp pains after the run. So no run this morning to play it safe. Ran half a mile to the presidential rec center, biked 15 miles, ran back. Cross training converts that to about 6 miles. I'll call it 5. Ankle hurt less. Hopefully it goes away real soon because I really don't need this..

A little over a marathon on the bike at high resistance. I've read that three miles on a bike is about the equivalent of running one mile, so I'll count that. I ran a little bit from the rec center to the dorm. I haven't taken any ibuprofen today and I barely felt any ankle pain during before, and a pretty minimal amount after. Rolled out and I feel no pain. Rec center is closed tomorrow so I'll try to run tomorrow.

5 miles of actual running! ankle hurt a bit on and off but in the end I was fine.

6 on the fields with Ethan in the morning.

PM - cross training. Got a good sesh in

7 REAL miles in the afternoon, and my peroneal felt REAL good!! Yes! Last mile worked down to 5:15 pace.

AM - 8 miles with Ethan in the morning on the fields. No ankle pain! Even after the run! I got back from my run, and had to take a 110 minute Calc test online. However, it wasn't made availabe to me due to miscommunication for over an hour! So, I had to take the test in about 15 minutes. Got a 98% which was sweet.

PM - Ran to the rec center, biked a little over 15k in the 30 minutes the stationary will let you bike, stretched, did core, did drills, headed back.

1113 miles from memorial day to labor day.

AM - slept in so didn't get the run in until about noon, after classes. I hadn't eaten anything since my early dinner last night, so 18 hours w/o food. Felt pretty lame at first. W/U to the fields. Did 5 .1 mile strides with equal recovery. Times went 27.2, 25.1, 27.1, 27.3, and 26.9. I mainly did these just to test out my track spikes on grass. Felt pretty good. Now I can go eat. After I run to the dining hall, of course.

My watch has been acting weird whenever I run from the dorms to the fields. It goes from 7:15 pace to 8:40 pace in a matter of seconds, and vice versa. I started where I ended the run, yet it says I gained 6 feet, and lost 41 feet. My moving avg pace was 7:18, yet the normal avg. pace was 7:28

PM - ran to the rec, did strength, ran back. Had 5 glasses of tea during that and felt sick

Hard workout today. 2.5 W/U with some short drills, 2000m, 1600m, 1200m, 800m, 8x100m. 5 minute active recovery between everything but the 100's, 1 minute rest between those. Grass was really wet and overgrown, also quite hilly. I ran where the Crimson Classic is held. I think the trees interfered with my watch signal quite a bit, but luckily that won't matter at races! Overall just didn't feel 100% today, but I made  Ran sockless in spikes. On the 2000 I had to step on concrete a few times, and at one point I was running on a sharp downhill turn, and at the end bottom there was nowhere to go, so I had to stop and turn around, so some time was added on to that one. 

Anyway, 2000, 1600, 1200, and 800 went 6:38, 5:22, 3:53, and 2:30. After every repeat my feet felt a bit more torn up. After the 800 I decided to run barefoot, as I took my spikes off I saw that my feet had some pretty bad blisters. Anyway did the 100's barefoot, ranged between 16-18. Grass where I was doing these strides wasn't as soft as I hoped, So after the strides and barefoot 2 mile cooldown, my feet were pretty thrashed. Good workout. It wasn't killer in theory, but the hills and grass definitely added some difficulty.

AM - slept in. Did 5 miles on grass fields before lunch

Legs felt really dead, pace was in the 6's for a majority of the run, which is sick. Can't remember the last time that happened on an easy run! Signed up for Falcon classic!

PM - Ran to the rec, biked for two hours, stretched, ran to the dining hall to meet Grant and Rob for dinner. Ethan was sitting alone and came and ate with us so that was cool.

Slept in this morning, so didn't get my actual workout in until after classes and lunch, at about 2. Way hot out. 5 miles "warming up", 8 200-ish meter hill strides, recovery down. Wouldn't have been too bad of a workout, but the heat made it just brutal. 97 with humidity, and the sun was beating down on me. Cooled down for 9. Avg pace was 7:05. Cooling down I felt like I was just jogging, plus the heat kills my pace. But that was still around 7 flat! So that's good. Developing speed. 

3 miles after dinner. Sped up to 5:10 pace at the last 200.

AM - I ate something last night and my stomach still wasn't settled when I woke up this morning.

Afternoon - 8 miles w/ 5 x 1 minutes hard on the grass fields. Got .20, .21, .22, .21, and .22. avg pace 6:38 for the entirety, and really didn't feel too hard! 

Ran to the rec and did strength before dinner.

Midday - 7 with strides and drills

afternoon - ran to the rec, cross trained, stretched, ran back.

Legs were pretty tired. I was supposed to have my final workout before the Falcon Classic today, but I decided to try a dish called "mixing popcorn with hot sauce". I love hot food, but I probably put half a bottle of Red Hot's on this popcorn. It was quite the spicy dish, and my stomach was still wrecked today from it. So, either doing 4-5 x 800's tomorrow, or some sort of fartlik.

I had a midterm today so I wanted to be well rested, and studied a lot, and was just very busy today overall, so I'll call it a taper. When I did try my workout, the heat was unbearable so I stopped. Ran to and from lunch and my midterm to get a little more mileage. The closest I got to a workout was racing Nathan on his longboard from the far dining hall to the dorm. I went quick.

For anyone wanting a good listen, I strongly recommend the "The Big Bang Theory" podcast by "How Stuff Works". It's really interesting. I also recommend their take on the Chaos Theory.

6 miles in the morning with Ethan w/ 5x20 second strides. Just have chemistry in half an hour, then done with running and classess for the day, so I just get to relax.

My prerace thoughts;

I've tapered a bit for this so with any luck I'll be running on fresh legs tomorrow. I've only gotten a little speed, so I'm not expecting any crazy results. My three goals are to win the race, break 27, and get a T-shirt. The CR is 26:38 and it would be great to break that, but we'll see. The race is two laps. I want to take the first lap out a bit easier, and then take the lead at the beginning of the second lap and then just try to gap the leaders. I just need to run about 10 seconds per mile faster than my pacing for the 5k I ran in August for sub 27, and that was really more of a tempo than competitive race. Wish me luck guys!

Not necessarily a great race, but a good learning experience. Mile shakeout at 4:45, came back to the room, had a bowl of cereal and a banana, grabbed my gear, some liquids, and headed out with Ethan. My legs felt good when we got on the course. I wasn't really nervous, there did seem to be some quick people. Apparently a couple people were FL national finalists which is pretty cool, now I've raced against more than just Garek, Conner, Connor, and Talon. I got on the starting line, and I felt completely ready. I noticed that there were 5 minutes left until start, yet the line was barren. Speakers come on and I'm told the race has been pushed back 30 minutes. That really put a damper on my attitude, but oh well. 30 minutes later and we're off. I was in the outermost right box, which is good because that's the inside for a lot of the turns on the course, and the course had a LOT of turns. So I don't get out too quick, towards the back. I hug the turns, problem is people were basically walking the curve! I got pushed back pretty bad, but I told myself not to make my moves until 3k. 5:24 at mile 1. I started moving around 2600m in, and passed quite a few people. 5:26 mile 2. People just wouldn't let me pass, and I lost focus around here. I kept passing people, but I'm not proud of my 3rd and 4th mile. 4 miles at 22:21 I think. I still wasn't really focused, I had kind of resigned, but then I realized I could break 28, so I buckled down that last 1000m and finished 27:50. Cooled down for 12. Didn't even get close to top ten - I would have had to break 25:20! Winning time was a 24:19. Wowzers.

My two problems I had with this race were my warm up ended up being an hour before I ran, so my legs tightened up, and I honestly added at least 20 seconds to my time by having to basically stop/walk on turns because of people ahead of me. I'm happy with how I finished, but it would have been more beneficial to just have gone out quickly and not been pushed back. On the drive back Ethan told me about a 5k next Sunday. The only problem is its at 2PM. Weather looks cloudy for next Sunday though. I'll see how I feel but maybe I can finally get sub 16.

Easy run before dinner with Ethan and Nathan in the rain. Would have done 5 but it started raining really hard. Did a few very brief strides on the grass. Nothing felt tight or bad.

6 miles with the UA Run club. We started off with around 25 of us and by the end it was just me, Parker(pres of club/1:14 half marathon), and Shawn(4:27 1600). The three of us each pushed the pace a bit, and we all agreed that we went quick. It wouldn't have been any fast mileage for me, but I was still tired from yesterday's race.

After dinner I ran to the rec, stretched and lifted, and ran back. Focused on upper body. Parker invited me to go on his distance run with him tomorrow. I run and I've already climbed the ladder of UA Run.

AM - slept in. 

PM - Easy X train + core. Had a wicked side cramp on the running. Just really busy today.

AM - 8 miles with 5x1 minutes hard thrown in the middle. The original plan was 10x1 minute, but I felt pretty sick to my stomach on #4 and #5 so I cut it short. Grass was soaked so I couldn't get good traction, but all my paces were sub 5, which is the first time I've gotten that on this type of workout. Did strides and drills after.

PM - 6 with Jonathan @ UA run.

AM - Easy run with a fast mile on the grass (no resting between the easy and fast stuff, just jumped straight into it). I ran after classes, before lunch. It was hot, humid, and muddy. Not ideal. Ran a 5:07 which isn't too shabby for trainers. Coming back I felt really good, I was going 6:40 pace and it felt like jogging. I swear I always feel the best AFTER doing quick stuff.

PM - Ran to rec, X-training. did core and stretched, ran back.

AM - woke up extremely early (4 AM) to get my run in. Did a little over 80 minutes, with 5 hill strides around 6 miles in on a huge hill I discovered. First four were around .19 long and I didn't get the times, but the last one I measured out a 400m for. I did that one in 69. Ran back to the dorm for 12 miles. I've stretched, ate some cereal, and it isn't even 6 AM here yet, so I'll probably go back to sleep until about 8:30.

PM - Bottom of my foot hurt a little bit. It's no injury but I think with the past three days having fast stuff, and more fast stuff tomorrow, and a race on Sunday, I figured rest would do no harm. I got on Strava for the first time in quite a while and saw on my easy second run on Tuesday I took the title of 8th fastest Blvd straightaway time with a 13:56. I was gonna do 4x800's tomorrow, but I guess 2 miles hard is just as good of a workout. I'm waking up at 4AM again, so I'll be able to run down the middle of main street. The course record is 10:53 for the 1.8 miles with 53 ft elevation gain,

Slept in. Course record will stand another day. 6.5 in the blazing heat, nearly 100 degrees. Felt slugish, but the pace was 6:50 so that's good, I think. Lifted/did core after

I swear my legs feel heavier after easy days than hard days

Definetely the most difficult conditions I've ever ran in, save maybe my 2nd leg of Ragnar when I had the asthma attack. Still, close. Shakeout at 11:30. I thought the race was at 4:30, but apparantly it got moved to 2:30, so that messed up my schedule. I ate lunch with Jonathan. I had an apple, a banana, some pineapple, and some rice with what I thought was pineapple salsa, but actually was more of a curry/potato thing. It was gross, but it was the best pre race meal I could find(I honestly think anything else would've been better, but more on that later). Johnny boy and I left almost immediately after lunch to go get signed up so we'd have around an hour to relax and cool off in our dorms(it was 100 degrees out+ humidity) before heading out, but due to confusion we were standing out in the sun getting checked in for over an hour, losing precious fluids. Returned to the dorms and had maybe 5 minutes to go to the bathroom/change. Jogged to the start and chilled with J-man, Parker, and a few others. Got to the start, and had to wait there for around 10 minutes because of even more confusion. There were about 400 people running the race. These sorority girls came up to Daniel, Parker and I, and told us we'd have to get top three for some reason. We agreed. Bull horn goes off, and the three of us are off. The course markings were terrible! As soon as I took the lead, I started to make a gap and I heard Parker yelling at me that I missed an unmarked turn, so an extra 10 seconds or so were added on catching back up to them. Around here Daniel got dropped, so it was just Parker and I side by side. First mile in 4:24. Ha! The markers were so off. Just add about a minute per mile for the first two markers. We hit the uphill at about 1.3, and the curry hit me. Oh man, did it hit me. I felt so sick. My stomach was on fire and I wanted to hurl but couldn't. Two miles in 9:27. At this point Parker's long gone and I'm just trying to hang on for dear life. I turn my head and see an older guy maybe 8 seconds behind me. I started thinking "even if he passes me, I get first for my age group". I was wussing out so hard, all I could think of was how sick I felt. But, I wasn't going to just hand him my 2nd place plaque. I picked up the pace quite a bit on the downhill(not to too respectable of a pace), and just hoped I'd drop the old guy. I looked behing a little while later, and he's maybe 4 seconds behind. I still didn't slow down though. 3 miles in 16:38. Not sure about how off this split was, but I do know that it took me another 2 minutes to finish the 5k. I looked back after I finished, and I had dropped the old guy by about a minute. Overall poorly coordinated and marked race. Poor racing conditions. Poor attitude. Not sure if the course was an actual 5k. I hope not. Cooled down maybe a mile with Jonathan, who got 6th. He ran 20:12, which isn't too far off his 19 min. 5k PR, which is crazy when his 800 PR is 1:59!

Really had to force myself to get out and run today, I was really busy in the AM and by the time I got back I wasn't feeling it. However, as soon as I walked outside I felt great, and adamant to do some great work. Ran 3.5 to the track, and I was going pretty quick. For the most part the pace was within 6:20-6:50. Felt good! Legs were a little tired. Too bad there were HS-ers on the track! Ran to the rec and did some real good core.

AM - Woke up at 4 AM and my stomach felt bad and my throat was sore. I had a calc test at 9 so I figured some rest would do my brain good. It's a shame, because I felt extremely well rested for 4 AM. Did 2 W/U, 2xmile on the grass in the heat w/ 3:30 recovery. Really wasn't feeling it. 5:15 for the first one, then for the second half of the second mile the heat hit me hard, and I just couldn't dig deep. My mind was wandering. 5:30 for that one. Cooled down for 6.5. Gonna get some good speed in in a few hours!

PM - 2 WU, 16x (30s hard, 30s easy), 2 CD. I wanted to average .10 on the hard. Ended up averaging .11 and got at least .1 on all but #11, because I tripped at the start. Good work for two workouts in 5 hours! Heat once again killed. There's nothing quite like the feeling of just lying on the grass after the final rep, eyes burning from salt, your heart pounding. I had to take about 15-20 seconds of rest after repeats #4, 8, 10, 12, and 14. The grass just sapped my legs. Overall today was pretty fun, two workouts a day is pretty neat.

AM - Alarm didn't go off! So no 7 mile tempo run. Got a shorter workout in before lunch. 2 WU, 5 x .2 hill strides w/ recovery down to the bottom, 2 CD. Hit 1:02, 1:05, 1:02, :59, and :57 I have two tests today and 8 hours of classes today, so we'll see if I have time for another workout.

Looking at the mileage board, I do believe I'm the youngest runner on page 1 of the yearly mileage board, which is pretty neat.

Great workout today. I knew when the warmup ended up being 6:30 pace that it would go swimmingly. WU 2 miles to the track. Workout was 3 sets of 4x400's in 85, 80, 75, and 70, with 800 jog between sets. Wasn't too hard of a workout, more of to open up my stride. Or, at least in theory. There were 15-20mph winds, but the tailwind was blocked by bleachers/hills. The headwind certainly wasn't though! Times went 82, 80, 75, 71, then 85, 79, 75, 68, and finished with 85, 79, 71, 69. My watch had the distance to be 1ong on the track, and the markings seemed off, but if that's the case then even better work today. Finished with some strides. Cooled down, which again was pretty quick. 5:57 avg. pace for 8 miles!

3 miles with some difficult core in the evening. Legs weren't even kind of sore, my back was a little tight though at points in the day.

AM - 5.5 miles before lunch with 4x200m strides. Felt a LOT better than my 150m strides on the grass last Saturday. Wasn't going ham, just feeling out my stride. 38, 36, 35, 31. Avg pace 6:40, making 9 straight days of sub 7 paces. It took a while but I'm finally getting to a good place with my fitness. Finally got my abs back too! Maybe they're related. Two weeks until the Crimson Classic!

PM - rest