Step by step, mile by mile

AM - 4 easy miles. Sterling Scholar man. #mathematicslife

PM - After a draining interview I was ready to have a solid workout. Did a mile warm up in the oxymoronic cold night(emphasis on the moronic part for me running in that freezing cold weather). It wasn't even a warm up, I threw in a few strides during it. 6:32. After that I had a euphoric epiphany that made me go to the rec center to continue the workout where I wouldn't die. The plan was 2x2 mile repeats, getting faster as time went on. Did the first one right under 10:30. Got off the treadmill and jogged for a few minutes and got back on. Hit 1.33 barely under 7:00, then the treadmill started to bug out. Proud to say I'm fast enough to break a treamill. Or my legs were failing. I'd believe either. Hopped off because I was wary since Kenny fell yesterday on the treadmill and skinned his face, so I wasn't finna get injured. Jogged a bit more, did a half mile in at sub 5 pace, and lifted and did core. Feels good to have good workouts. After a lot of analyzing my season and saturday, I think my problem with racing was I got too worried and my own mind became my worst detriment. That, and heat. Going to take Footlocker with a easy breezy beautiful covergirl attitude and hopefully do well.

Tempo. LSD. Races. Intervals. The four essential workouts lived in harmony, until the racing nation attacked. Only Eugene could stop them. But when Uintah needed him most, he vanished. Believe it or not, I showed up to team practice today. I was actually going to do my own thing, but I heard we were running Yellow Hill, which was false. The team decided to do core instead. Around a mile warm up, then headed to the indoor. Coach Hill was stacking up the box jumps when I thought it would be fun to have a core race of sorts, so I suggested it to him. He and I devised a killer workout, where a male/female duo switched out between running a lap with stairs faster than race pace, while the other did box jumps, push ups, wall sits, etc. Paired up with Jacia, and we str8 murdered it. Mason and Jessica and Jordan and Reagan were not too far behind, the latter pair almost beat us until Jacia beat Jordan in the home stretch lol hot next we had to switch partners and Jacia and I departed for the battle of the century between Mason and Jacia and Reagan and I. I managed to get us a pretty big lead, but Mason threw in a crazy third lap and I had to haul. Too bad there were still four laps left. Reagan and I took the crown for that one. Really fun workout, I liked it. Would have been more fun if Aaron weren't too cool for school but oh well. 5 Easy miles after in the freezing cold #Brr. I threw in the last 800 under 3 minutes striding out. Let the tapering begin!

Easy 6 mile run from the high school to the post office to the rehab center and back to the high school. First three miles were 6 minute pace, so I had to hold my horses for this run. A few barefoot strides after.

After spending 9 hours starting and completing online government in the span of 24 hours, I was pretty spent last night. I woke up and my neck hurt, I think I slept on it wrong. Had a small breakfast and went around looking for my short shorts and racing Saucony shirt. I couldn't find it anywhere, it turned out my mom threw them in the washer. Put them in the dryer for a few minutes, and drove to the start of the race. I found Mason almost immediately, and we did a mile warm up and a few stretches. I heard it was 19 degrees, and I believed it. I took off my sweats and got on the starting line, but the announcer droned on for an eternity. My shirt was still a bit wet, and my legs felt frozen. The officials countdown from 5, and we're off. A lot of younger kids sprinted the beginning, but by 400m in Mason, Kedric, Christian, and I have a bit of a lead. Mason was taking the pace fast, so I decided to pack with Christian and Kedric for a bit. At almost a mile in there was a U turn, and I didn't want to get pushed on the outside so I got in front of the two of them. I picked it up a bit, and hit somewhere between a 5:35-40 for the first mile. The cold was way strong, I can't even explain it. I could see Mason was only maybe 50-75m ahead of me, so I picked up the pace. I hit the second U(about the halfway mark) with Mason about 10 seconds ahead, Christian maybe 5 seconds behind, Kedric trailing him. Mason heard me behind him and threw in a hard surge. I picked up the pace some more and at the 2 mile mark I caught Mason. He told me there was only a mile left, so I passed him to get the inside of the final U. With maybe .8 miles left Mason surged again and caught me. I said something like "let's go" to him and he said okay, and we ran together until there was a half mile left, and I started to kick. Mason yelled at me to win it, and I was gone. I ran 18:21, Mason ran 18:30, and Christian ran an 18:40 something. The conditions were pretty bad for the race, there was like 15 mph winds, but I'm happy with how I ran. This was the first race since time trials where I was able to think somewhat clearly about something that didn't involve pain and/or slowing down. Kedric got 4th, and Austin got 5th. Mile cooldown with Mason. We cheered for Kedric and Austin during it, I didn't realize how far ahead we were until I turned around after the race and saw Mason and Christian were the only two on the 800m home stretch. Another cooldown by myself after. I won 75 dollars so it was a good day.

The McCoy 10k road at an easy pace, surging on some of the hills. Ran to the rec center after and lifted for about ten minutes. On the way out my prior amigos Kash and Karston walked in, they had just came back from SUU for the holidays. They made me go back in the weight room where another hour of hard core lifting took place. I saw the Mockingjay with them later that night along with a few others, and it was a terrible movie lol core when I got home. It snowed at least 4 inches while we were in the movie.

6 miles. My back was killing me from yesterday. Thanks for nothing Kash. Mile warmup, followed by 3xmile repeats. Since it snowed hard yesterday I had to run at the rec center. The way the repeats went was 1/3 of the mile was at 5:07 pace, then 1/3 at 5:36 pace at a pretty difficult incline, then 1/3 easy on the track. The first two parts were on the treamill, the turns on the track are way too sharp for anything more than a quick jog. 3 of those, then a cooldown to add up to 6. Did some core after. I think I've done everything I could to get in the best possible shape I could in the past month with the conditions I've been given. All I need to to do is keep a cool head and not sweat it.