I can do it. I will do it NINE times!

Started morning runs this week to get some more mileage in. At 5:30 went out by my house Stake Center run 3.5, went pretty easy, avg. 7:46 min/mile. Felt great, since there was no traffic, I had a good time running in the middle of the road (on the yellow lines and in the lane). Fun times on a nice easy run.

Afternoon at Track practice, 2x on track warmup then ran Green Springs 5 miler with Ally and Nikki Johnson. Just went nice and easy, stopped for Ally once and Nikki another time to go potty. Knees weren't liking me a whole bunch, my left is bugging me a bit under my kneecap and my right on the outside, a bit like ITB tendinitis I had in my left last year but not nearly as bad. Once we got back, we did 9x100m striders on the track, those weren't too bad. Lifted after that: did 3x10 Hamstring curls (at 10), 1x10 Leg Extensions (at 8) - they hurt my left knee so I stopped after one set, 2x10 laying on your stomach and doing a curl-like thing with legs (80 then 70) 2x5 leg lifts, 2x10 each on mid/in/out calves on leg press (90 lbs) and 1x10 bench press (55 lbs) - would've done more, but I had to run off to voice lessons. Iced knees when I got home for a while.

was late to practice because of solo&ensemble after school today, but i hurried really fast and made it in time to warmup to coach's room (to get my spikes) and back and come in on everybody else's 2nd repeat (while i was doing my first). ran pretty well overall - we did 5x1000m repeats with a 400m jog recovery in between. my goal pace was to get around low 3:40s. they were AWESOME!!!!

1 - 3:38 - good time, i felt kinda fast, but it wasn't too hard, there was a bit of wind though

2 - 3:36 - still feeling great, a titch tired but not enough to slow me down at all

3 - 3:36 (again!) - getting way under pace and feeling awesome, legs a bit tired, but almost halfway, pushed really well against increasingly hard wind - i had to close my eyes to avoid getting turf bits and dust in my eyes - yuk.

4 - 3:33 ! - wore my spikes and sped up even more, kept my split times down where i liked them and pulled in a great (way under pace) time. wind was really hard and it started to rain at the end.

5 - 3:33 (again!) - tired, but i pushed it hard to keep my time where i wanted it, in spikes still, left knee a bit of trouble, but now bad

 great workout overall! i'm so elated!! woohoo. 3/4 mile cooldown on big grass loop with jeff frodsham, josh decker, eric goold and alex baker

Morning run, 2x on track warmup, then Arctic Circle (3) with ALLY (she has a blog too)(and has lucky teeth). Anyway, we went pretty fast, the first half I was really tired and wanted to go slow but Ally was pushing it more, so I went with her. I finally got into the run on the way back and it went pretty well and I ran fast. During the run I was trying to run with higher knees to see if it helped me run faster and easier. I felt good for the most part, used some different muscles so it was a little more tiring than just running faster w/o higher knees

After school at practice, 2x on track warm up. We ran AT Dogpound (4) , the first 1/2 mile was warming up, then the last 1/2 mile was cooling down. middle  mile times were alright: 6:39, 6:20, 6:47. slower than last week, but yesterday's workout was harder. while running, my legs were so tired, left knee hurting a bit esp. on the downhill (mile 2).

Warmup 2x on track, then easy 4.26 miler with Jeff, Josh, Zac Zabriskie and Nikki Johnson since we have a meet tomorrow. calves kind of tight, ran faster than i probably should've for an easy run (7:46 avg.), since my legs are dead, but i really didn't want to go slow. knees bugged me a bit, esp. left, iced them when i got home.

Goals for Friday and Saturday's meet (here at PV!):

3200m - break 12 minutes (and qualify by time for state, definitely)

1600m - low 5:20's (and qualify by time for state, definitely)

800m - not die. mid-high 2:20's (possibly qualify...i hope)

Warmed up with the team (.5 on track) then warmed up later for the 1600m (.75 on track). Meet started a bit late so I ended up warming up too much too soon, no fun. Race was alright, I pushed well on my middle laps, but we didn't get splits for our races at all because our coaches were busy running/hosting the meet. During the race there was a headwind along the home straightaway and a bit of the curves leading into and coming out of it as well. On the other straightaway, you couldn't even feel it pushing behind you. Oh man! It was a hard race, I was really tired throughout, I thought I was pushing, but when I'd give a little surge to pass someone or something I realized I had more to give even though my legs felt sore and tired. Kind of frustrating. (time 5:30) Only got beaten by a 5A girl and a 4A girl (fastest was 5:24) Sad that I didn't get my goal of qualifying, but I can do it next time!!!!   Cooled down once around track.

Today's events were the 3200m and then the 800m.

Woke up late (8:20) and threw on my uniform and sped to the HS for the meet which started at 9:00 (the 3200m was the first event). I didn't get breakfast except for 1/4 of a piece of bread as I drove to the meet. I ended up having plenty (mostly) of time to warmup (2x on track) and stretch for the race. Before the race, we did a cheer of "We love 8 laps, woohoo!" The race was amazing!! Not too many elbow wars at the start (which was nice) and I felt pretty strong the whole time. I remembered to push laps 5-7 even though I was getting pretty tired, stuck about 15 feet behind the 3-girl pack leading the race most of the time, but lost them on the 7th lap. Kicked it hard my last lap (it is so exhilarating to only have one more after the seemingly endless 7 other ones) and got a total time of 11:45.88 and qualified for state (by 17 seconds!) and met my goal by a long shot!!!

Warmed up with a big grass loop (.75) then signed in at the bullpen and did agilities (left knee hurt a lot doing high skips and high knees) and warmed up more with the other girls running the 800m (Ally & Nikki). The race wasn't that great, my legs were out of juice from running the 3200m so hard. The start was no good, they did a waterfall start instead of a staggered waterfall and we had too many girls trying to push to the front the whole first 100m. The official lined us up in our lane order, so I had to be in lane one and got clobbered at the start, which didn't help my race out at all. Overall didn't do so hot, just out of juice. Oh well. I'm kind of frustrated with the 800m this year, I did really well at it in previous years, but this year I'm really struggling to do well at it. Maybe I'll get into it later in the season...? Time was 2:31.65 ( .3 seconds faster than last week...) no fun and frustrating, didn't meet my goal at all.

After cleaning up after the meet, I went on a easy-middling 5-miler from the HS (Bank run), knee was a little hurty after the first couple of miles. I am a little disappointed that I didn't make it to a 40-mile week (by .8 miles) this week. I just wasn't counting during the week, or I would've run a 6-miler instead. Shucks.

Work harder at practice!!!