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

Morning run from my sister Mary's house in Baltimore easy 4 miler, 8:20-ish pace. So COLD and raining! (Alchemy 304) Afternoon run with Haverford team, looped on the nature trail twice (5 mi.) first one was slow and easy, then I took off on the second one. (DST 322.5) Lifted after.

I spent most of today at Haverford, meeting coach, professors and team and touring the campus. My thoughts on Haverford: It has the most beautiful campus I've ever seen - 211 acres of arboretum and old classic buildings with their own duck pond and nature trail. The student body is around 1100 and they have a really great group of professors. However, most of the team and students that I met were kinda rude, snooty and loose - I mean morals-wise. I mean, I wasn't expecting them to have values like people here, but I thought that they'd at least have some scruples... but nope. It kinda put me off toward them. We'll see...

Bridge loop once in Boston around Charles River. 4x200m fartleks at the end of each mile 2-5. Felt really good, though legs pretty sore from lifting yesterday. And the stairs hurt a lot. But it was perfect fall weather and a really beautiful run on the river trail. (Alchemy 310.31)

Spent today visiting MIT, stayed the night with a girl on the team, went to the info session, a math class, on a campus tour and met coach Taylor. My thoughts on MIT: So many serious people! Also, in talking to team members and coach, there'd be no way for me to do well at school, run and be in any choirs because of the huge amount of homework that students are assigned. As much as I'd love to go to such an amazing university, if I really 'need' that kind of prestige, I can go somewhere huge for grad school later. The people there were all really intense and nerdy. As much as I'm a nerd, I don't think I'd enjoy that kind of nerdy-ness  24/7 for 4 years. Met asst. coach Mark Coogan and liked him, but didn't really like coach Talyor. Pushy.

Ran out and back from the dorm I stayed in, surprised it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be though it was randomly gusty and I froze then. Avg. 7:23/mi pace, felt really easy and nice! (DST 326.8)

Spent today at Calvin! A student picked my mom and me at the airport and at the end, she dropped us off, it was so nice. Stayed the night with a girl on the team there - it was so fun, we talked and partied until about 2 am, ha!  They gave me an itinerary for the day which was so easy  and I really liked most all of the stuff I did there. I ate meals in their cafeteria (not bad, surprisingly), met a couple professors, got a tour, met some admissions and financial aid persons, and the team and coaches. Everyone was so friendly and I really liked it there. Overall, of the 3 colleges I visited, I think Calvin was a lot better fit for me than the others.

Got a long massage today- it hurt so much! My left leg especially had all sorts of weird twisting and oddness that took forever for her to get out and boy did it hurt while she did! But now the legs feel quite nice with only a bit of soreness.

Ran with the club after, went out-and-back 5, stayed with everybody on the way out, then just me and Hayden turned around at 2.5, so we ran together on the way back. Some fast easy downhills on the way out made for some fun miles then, but on the way back it was harder. Avg. around 7:30/mi w/ a couple sub-7's. (Alchemy 315.34)

After the State Football game (we almost won... 50 to 7! Ha!), we went to Sugarhouse Park and ran around a lot, played frisbee, then kickball and I sprinted back to the car  - I thought I'd never run up that beastly hill again, but whatever. So that was a titch of running...

When we got to the hotel, we went on a little run out on the UVSC camupus - lots of stairs. Eew. Legs feeling kinda bruised in spots from the massage. (DST 329.3)

The timing was really weird at the race and coach got all our times around 20 seconds faster than the 'official' time, so my official time was 20:47 but coach got my time faster than that, which I think was more accurate.

Warmed up running one loop of the course - 1 mile, got ready to run and got up to the line - it was pretty chilly, so I ran with under-armour, headband and gloves.
Overall, I felt SO slow the whole race, cold and not motivated. Of late, I've felt (don't really know how to describe it?) kinda apathetic in some ways, like when I was racing, instead of being focused on competition and racing and winning I had thoughts of inadequacies, excuses and such unhelpful things that really got me down. My legs felt so cold and heavy, they were moving so slow and around halfway into the race my stride got shorter and lots more labored. Mostly felt crappy which was really frustrating. Slow time and freaking 6th place again. 6 really is the devil's number. Angry face.
Jogged around with Ashley and cheered for the boys during their race for a cooldown. (DD spike 34) (DST 331.3)