GOING THE DISTANCE

12pm -  Early out from school today.  So I guess we met for practice at 11:30 but I was hungry so I ate lunch.  Then the workout was 1k repeats.  I attempted 3.  My times were 3:46, 3:39, 3:34.  They were kinda hard but the worst thing was my knee, it was pretty sore.  Warm up and cool of 1.5 each.

3pm -  1/1 workout today.  I was gonna try to do 15 or until I couldn't anymore.  Around # 6 my knee started getting really sore.  So at #9 I stopped.  I was getting pretty dang tired so I don't know how much more I would have lasted.

3pm -  Michigan workout today.  It was the first one of the season.  I didn't really know what to expect from myself.  So I didn't stress about it or hardly even think about it during the day.  That for sure helped me do good.  My knee has been sore so I was a bit worried it might prevent me from going all out on this workout.  But luckily it felt great the whole time.  So we started out on the track with an 800.  I felt nice and got behing Byron, Taylor, Kyler.  We got going on the grass 800 loops and started spreading a bit.  I just stayed behind kyler like 20m the whole time.  The second time on the track was we're it started getting hard.  On the 2nd group of grass 800's I though about this book I read we're the guy said "you have your highs and your lows".  So I just kept thinking positive thoughts over and over in my mind.  I kept saying to myself, "just run, just run".  So I did I as I went to do my final 400 on the track I was really surprised to see the time was 23:30's and I thought to myself that I could get A standard.  So I started pushing even harder.  This was mentally the hardest part.  I wanted to jog it in so bad but I knew it would help give me a stronger kick so I just kept pushing.  I was glad how I was able to win the mental battle in the workout today.  I think my ending time was in the 24:30's.  I cooled down a mile and it was actually pretty painful in my knee so a day of pool running tomorrow then race on Friday at Herriman.  

5pm -  Great swim today.  did 20 laps in about half hour, maybe a little more.  Race tomorrow, my mind is ready hopefully my body is.

4:30pm -  Today I raced in the Herriman Invite.  It was my first time racing there and it was pretty legit and hard core. We the team left the highschool at 8am then got up to orem and watched the suu girls race.  Then we drove up to sugarhouse park and ran the state course.  The day had been pretty sunny so far, but a huge bunch of clouds was coming from the west and they let loose over the whole salt lake valley.  After we ran at the park, we ate at the the south towne mall and headed over to the race, planning to race at 6:20...

 But we got to the meet and the anouncer anounced the start of the varsity girls.  We all were kinda suprised thinking "did he really just say that, is this really the girls varsity race?" and yes it turned out to be the girls varsity race.  So all the sudden us boys were running in 20 minutes.  We all grabbed our spikes and headed down to the start line.  I was able to get in a few strides and stuff and jog around a bit.  The we lined up and went racing.

The start was small and about 100m into the race, you were stuck in the position you were in for the next mile.  That was my one reallly big mistake was not getting out quick enough and getting into a good position.  The whole first mile was just hills, hills, hills.  Me and Kyler came through 1 mile at 6:35 with Paul right behind.  Most of the second mile was a big downhill slope with a few hills and that was were I passed everyone I could.  I came through 2 miles in 12:05 so much quicker.  Then came the killer last mile, starting with the mutha cussa then a half mile long up hill.  This was the hardest part of the race.  It was SO slow like 8 minute pace.  My legs would not move at all, it took all I had to just keep moving.  I've been thinking if maybe a good strategy would have been to stop for like 10 seconds then maybe it would have been easyer to go faster.  Who knows, but this was a fun race.  Super muddy and lots of hard core hills, all leading to my impressive 5k time of 20:06.  This was actually my 5k PR since I've never run a 5k before.   

3pm -  Nice easy run.  I went out just to get some of the soreness out of my legs.  I planned on going really easy, whatever the pace happened to be.  I thought it might be around 9 min pace.  But as I got running I felt really great and averaged about 8 min pace.  I ran out into the desert then over towards tge rec center.  Then I came back through the desert.  I had planned on going maybe 3 miles but I just felt real good and I was doing what I loved do I went a little farther.  My left arch did get a little sore by the end from running in my kinvaras.