Sock tans

Not gonna lie, today was one of the days where I had to shut my mind off, try my hardest to be positive and just run because I was moody, stressed out and there was a lot of negativity from my teammates. I was really frustrated because their complaints just made me envious and I don’t like that, I just want to be happy with my circumstances. I have a lot of things to be grateful for like being able to train with such a fast team and under such patient, kind and understanding coaches. And I still get opportunities not a lot of other people get, others have to pay for gym memberships and I get bribed with food to go to weights haha

Only like half of us did the workout today, I think it was all those that Coach was planning on racing this coming weekend? Not sure. Coach isn’t sure if I’m going this weekend, it just depends if there’s enough spots on the bus. This is my one chance to travel with the team during indoor, and it’s hard to stay positive and believe I’ll be able to travel much in outdoor because that’s even more difficult. There’s less spots. I understand it, I’m the slowest, we have to accommodate sprinters and throwers and jumpers, too. I understand, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult. On the bright side though, I can always drive up north when BYU or Utah State or UVU or one of those hosts a meet. So I’ll still be able to race, even if it’s not with my team.

Paul ran up to me and stopped me as I was leaving weights, he reminded me that I’m running really well right now and even if I leave SUU having only PR’d by one second, I still will have PR’d. He also reminded me that this weekend was the first meet, and that it’s ok that I died. Later on I’ll be able to hold it. I love Paul, he always seems to know exactly what to say when I need it, even though he probably has no idea that I really needed that today.

Anyways, I ate way too much for lunch today only an hour before practice so I wasn’t feeling great. But my teammates weren’t doing great for their own reasons either, except for Sam and Alison. I think they’re the only ones Coach let finish the workout. The rest of us he pulled and told us to do distance because he “didn’t like what he was seeing.” To be honest, considering how I felt, I didn’t do too terribly. It was just on the 800, I wasn’t looking at my watch and just ran with Morgan and Julieta was behind me so I thought I was fine, though it did feel surprisingly comfortable and easy. Turns out it was way slow... oh well. 2x1000s, I hit 3:37, 3:38 which is awesome. They didn’t even feel that hard. I just felt like I ate too much haha but they were really relaxed. 60-90 seconds rest between them, then the 800 was 3:03 so way slow. And that’s why coach pulled us haha. Kind of bummed, if I’d paid more attention to pace I might’ve been allowed to finish. Oh well. Then did Main and cut down 300 W for cool down, I was glad to be alone and work through the negativity that had built up over practice. 

Weights later, it’s a hard week. 5 sets and up in weight. But it’ll be good for us. Also, Coach I had me roll out my quads on the PVC pipe and it hurt like heck. He says that’s what’s most likely causing my knee pain. It did feel a lot better afterwards, the hamstring curls didn’t hurt my knee anymore and I actually got a burn in my hamstrings rather than knee pain hahaha. Also because there’s an odd number of us in weights Coach I helped me with a lot of the partner stuff, it was nice to have him coach me one on one. He pointed out my feet wanting to roll to the side, in my left foot especially I don’t usually use my big toe for power. I’ve always known my foot positioning was terrible so I was just like, “yeah.” I asked him what I could do to fix it and he said to just pay attention when walking, I have to create the neuropathways so I use my big toe. One day my form will be fixed haha. Ooh I should ask him how to get my right arm to move through the same ROM as my left... haha. It’s fun because I actually understand what he (or my trainers or my coach) talks about now that I’ve taken quite a bit of Exercise Science classes. It intrigues me.

HR 55

Distance run today, Canyon + Bicent. 7:22 average. I was feeling pretty tired but I kept up. Also heart rate was high this morning, my body’s probably just tired.

Hips haven’t hurt in a while, I think the rehab finally took care of them. My knee started hurting the last two miles, felt some sharp pain a few times. Drew is going to scrape my quads tomorrow since we did hard tissue work yesterday. Rolled out and game readied

HR 65

2 mile warmup, strides then started. 2 laps and straight into an 80%. A mile on the track, a mile on the block lap, a mile on the track. Hit 6:01, 12:32 (6:31), 19:23 (6:51). 6:28 average. I was not in a good place mentally. Almost dropped out after 2 miles but then told myself to suck it up, what was 4 more laps? And it didn’t feel that hard, an indication I didn’t work hard enough haha. That last one I dogged just trying to finish. I was surprised I hit what I did, it honestly felt so slow. I thought for sure it’d be above 20 minutes so I was happy that it wasn’t. 

Told myself to toughen up, stop being so negative and just finish the workout. Ran over to the hill, I’d missed the first 2 repeats but I did the last 7. Weights after and got my quad and lower leg scraped out. Rapid rebooted.

Just trying to stay positive. Most likely need to lower my expectations. Might reevaluate a few things and come up with a plan for what to work towards going forward, seeing as I won’t be traveling. I’m learning to find the positive in comments from my teammates and let go of jealousy and frustrations. This will be a good strengthener for me because I’ll be able to learn how to let things bounce off and focus more on the positive, pushing through and doing what I can to improve, rather than comparisons and the negative thoughts that press down on me. It’ll help humble me and help others up instead of focusing on my own struggles. Because in the end, what does it matter if I achieve what I want if it doesn’t affect someone else in a positive way, too?

HR 55

Today’s workout was pretty tough. We did warmups, 2 mile warmup and strides before starting. Workout was 4x400s with 3 minutes rest, 4x300s with 2 minutes rest, 3x200s with 90 seconds rest, 8x100s with 15 seconds rest. All at mile pace or faster. My goal pace is 5:20, so 80, 60, 40, 20. Originally it was going to be 6x400s but then coach changed it. After the 300s he also said if we felt like we needed to drop out we could. I was surprised. None of us did. I think he said that because it’s the third day of speed this week for everyone and we know our bodies well enough to know when it’s not a good idea to push etc. I like that coach allows us to decide and judge what we can handle. It helps prevent injury.

Anyways, times went:

400s: 78, 79, 78, 79

300s: 56, 56, 59, 58

200s: 37, 38, 38

100s: 18, 20, 20, 19, 19, 19, 19, 18.

Starting out, those 400s felt harder than normal. At that effort I thought it’d be 76-77 range. But my legs felt heavy. I felt like it was a good workout though and under 5:20 pace, so I met my goal. Cooled down to 8 with Madison and Haley. Weights, rolled out, glute challenge for hip rehab (45 seconds/exercise), then quad/toe/hip exercise for knee. Noticed my VMOs weren’t fully firing so addressed those briefly, we’ll work more on them tomorrow. Knee is feeling better than yesterday and Tuesday

Later did 3x10 pushups and 3x25 crunches. Didn’t I say I was bad at doing core daily? Lol attempt number 2, going to try to do this daily for 2 weeks straight. Then I’ll bump it up, but I’ve got to start small haha. Baby steps. I also forgot to take my pulse this morning... sigh.

Coach made a side comment today about needing the women’s team to be bigger and the men’s to be smaller... we have like 40 guys and only 11 girls. Lol.

I decided that I’m going to stay positive about everything and focus on what I enjoy. Because I really do love it here, even though it’s hard. And I’ll just expect not to travel with the team so I don’t keep getting disappointed. I’ll go to the local meets in outdoor if I can and it’s not all about racing. I like seeing the improvements I make even in practice. And the 80% yesterday wasn’t half as bad as I thought, last year at this time I ran 19:47. I compared it to the 18:52 I ran a month or so later. But I also wasn’t at my best yesterday and realistically could’ve been right around there if I’d pushed the last mile like I was supposed to instead of settling. Next time.

I started up medication finally, got prescribed two different kinds one is the regular everyday one that will make gradual changes in the brain for both depression and anxiety (takes a few weeks to start working) and the other is for immediate relief for extreme anxiety. I took the immediate one yesterday a couple hours before bed because I was getting so stressed out about anything and everything. It actually worked, I stopped worrying about things, felt physically more relaxed, it was weird. I guess I’ve been so used to always worrying I haven’t known what it’s like to not stress about things, even though there were still things to stress about... if that makes sense? It was really, really nice actually. Feeling better about taking medication now, I was hesitant haha. Side effects, if any occur, should only last one or two weeks. And hopefully I’m not allergic lol. 

I was surprised by how I felt today. Not that sore, my legs are just a little heavy. Much better than I was expecting!

Today’s workout was a 60% and this was hands down the best 60 I’ve done. I don’t know what it was but I felt so smooth and relaxed. Coach said at the beginning that I was technically in my own group with a goal pace of 6:35-7:00, but I could try to keep up with the group if I wanted. I was kind of relieved to have a slower range because I didn’t worry about hitting pace or having a hard standard to hit, I knew I could hit within the range and with it being slower I wouldn’t have to stress if I was hitting slower especially since it’s the last day of speed/effort. But I determined to stay with the group for as long as I could. It was a small group today. It ended up being just Madison, Haley and I to go the full 5. I kept up until about 3.5 miles in, then I got the worst stomach cramps in the world. And it was a windy last mile +. And I started thinking too much about how I felt, lost my rhythm. I need to work on strength.

My first 3 miles were faster than my 80% earlier this week... haha. Splits were:

6:15, 12:30 (6:15), 18:44 (6:14), 25:13 (6:29), 32:32 (7:19). Averages out at 6:30

Yeah my last mile sucked but I’m super happy about the first 4. Coach asked me if I’ve been sandbagging it this whole time haha :) the first 4 miles were faster than I ran the road race in at the beginning of Cross.

I hopped in coach’s car right after instead of doing some cool down with Haley and Madison because my stomach hurt so bad. My body hated me for pushing it hard for so long haha. After a bathroom break back at the track I did a mile of cool down that was still a struggle haha. I guess that’s just an indication I worked hard :) lol

Hip rehab, rolled out, worked on activating my VMO some. Stretched out then called it a day

HR 58

Easy run, 7:58 average. I’m pretty worn out from this week and it was nice to relax. Super windy this morning. The last mile was a struggle. My throat is a little sore, I hope I’m not getting sick.