Sock tans

AM: 4 miles easy

PM: Paul texted that practice was on our own. Got thinking about track and got excited because I realized that this year I’m in good shape and might actually be able to PR, last year I was struggling to get in shape and was 6-8 lbs heavier than I am now. Even the thought of going sub 5:20 again is exciting, I know I can do that. I’ve gone 5:45 in practice before and it’s been fairly relaxed, I’m sure if I got into race mode and worked hard I could do it in indoor. When I talked to Paul he said to work for a 5:10 mile, then go for 5:00. It’s been a long time since I’ve believed in myself, but I’m starting to again, and I’m actually getting excited. Gives me something to work towards, and is a good reminder that I’m training right now for that, and that every day counts and is one step closer to achieving it.

Maybe got a little too excited. Went 9.25 miles at 7:37 average, making it 13.25 miles for today. Legs are a little tired but it feels good

HR 48

I’m going to start getting to bed earlier, I was so tired today. Sometimes I forget that I need sleep. Also, legs were heavy.

Mile warmup, strides then started. Workout was 4x1000s on the grass with 3 min recovery. We were all hoping for it to be on the track. I need to learn to love the grass because it’s just always going to be where we do workouts until track season. It’s good because it’s cross so we don’t need the fast speed and can learn to run off effort. And it’s also nice to throw pace out the window and just focus on being consistent, and it’ll toughen us up. I would rather run fast paces and build confidence on the track, but there’s time for that later.

First three were nice and consistent. Last one Bino and Danielle picked it up and ran with me, I dropped back after a bit because I started worrying about it too much and gave up. I need to stop doing that. I’m frustrated because it was the last one, I was on pace with 400 left. I was cranky, tired and frustrated, not my day? I need to learn how to relax, let negative thoughts and feelings go and replace them with positive ones. I’m good at positive self-talk and managed to thrust all the negative down for the first three but it’s like as soon as something changes I can’t keep it down anymore and start to die. Paul gave me another pep talk before the last and that helped me in the first half, I was starting to struggle mentally but held on a little longer, then negative won out. Running is such a mental game.

Times went 4:05, 4:03, 4:05, 4:17.

Positives are that I was more consistent than past workouts. It was just the last one. I’m heading in the right direction, just need to toughen up mentally and continue to work hard.

Cooled down to 6.

Asked Coach after how fast he wants me to increase my miles, he said he doesn’t. He wants me to stay at 8 for a while, because it seems like anytime I get up to 10 I get injured. I can’t deny that, so 8 it is. I’m a little sad because I do feel more confident with higher miles, but maybe if I do 6 on faster workout days and 10 easy on recovery days that’d be alright. Then I’m still running long sometimes and getting that benefit, and on faster days I can hit the paces without worrying about distance.

HR 48

50% on canyon, we hauled the last 3 miles. Just under 7:00 for two of the miles and then 6:30 pace for the last bit. But it felt good. Then strides and finished to 7.

Went to the dive-in movie at the pool, it was a good time. Mini arm workout from trying stand 4 of us up on a paddle board at once, and trying not to let Alex or Payton throw me off lol. Got a few bruises but it was a blast

HR 53

So I'm taking a swim class that starts next week, it’s intermediate swim and I could swim to survive but that’s about it haha. So Kenady was kind and taught me the different strokes this morning so that I can at least know something going in. Didn’t spend much time on back, breast or free because I had those mostly down, just need to work on the breathing. Spent the rest of the time trying to learn butterfly, it’s freaking hard. I sort of had it by the end, I was just exhausted so I could only do like 5 strokes at a time. I’ll probably attempt it again sometime this weekend and see if I can do it better when I’m not so dead.

I went through the graphs of my mileage to see how much I really have done in the past few years and I was surprised. I didn’t really believe coach until I looked at the graphs, cause I was like pfft I ran high miles in high school and was fine! But back then I wasn’t always at 80 miles and my miles were slow, now they’re faster and I’m much more consistent with mileage. And my body has changed a lot. But yeah. Coach is right yet again. When I push my miles and start believing I’m only going to be fast with those high miles I get injured.

I think my problem with running has been that I haven’t 100% trusted in the program or the coaches. It’s been more like 80%. There’s still been a part of me that has doubted whether or not this would really work for me and wants to start pulling in things from my training in high school, mainly the higher miles. But I think I’m ready to let go of that once and for all and start trusting more in Coach and Paul. As I think about it, I have gone along with things and done everything they have asked, but there’s always been a nagging part of me that’s thought, what if this doesn’t help me? How am I going to improve? But I’m surprised when I learn the thought process behind it. For example, here I am wondering how the heck I’m going to improve enough to move into the other group when my group is only doing half of the workouts. I didn’t like the separation, I don’t like feeling inferior to the other group. But then I remind myself that Coach didn’t just put me in this group, it was a mutual decision. I knew I wasn’t ready to jump into intense training right at the beginning of the semester. I needed to come back slower so I didn’t reinjure myself. And it gives us an opportunity to be coached more individually. But now that I’m able to do the workouts and be confident about finishing and Im starting to maintain paces, I’ve started looking at how I’m going to progress to completing the whole workout, if we just do half of the other group’s then I’m never going to get faster or eventually be in the other group. I was surprised when I asked Paul about it yesterday and he’d already been thinking along those lines and already has a plan, he’s still refining a few things but was on the same page. I guess I’m just starting to trust more in Paul and Coach, and am finally starting to let go of what I thought I knew and just trust that Coach and Paul are going to help me get to where I want to be. And I don’t have to worry about doing things wrong because they’re always thinking a couple steps ahead of me when it comes to training. So, from now on, I’m going to stop comparing everything we do now to what I did in high school. It’s never going to be the same, the training we do now is a step up from that, and is so much more successful than the training I did in high school. I guess I’ve tried so hard to be independent of a coach because I realized after high school that I’m not always going to have one, and because of some things that happened I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need a coach. Which is dumb because I have two amazing ones here trying to help me.

Both of our teams this year have a shot of going to Nationals. That’s never happened before. And I know the girls, I know where they used to be and where they are now. Coach has a knack for seeing potential in people that others can’t, and I think maybe he sees something in me too.

50% today, dikes + canyon. 7:43 average

HR 52

1 mile warmup, then 3 more laps and straight into the 80%. Paul wanted us to do 2 miles, pace 6:20-6:45. Bino and I ran together, it was slightly annoying because they were prepping for the football game so they had stuff in lane 1 and blasted pre-recorded advertisements and announcements, then set off some firework thing that sucked to run by. But it’s cool we got to jam to Imagine Dragons for half a lap.

Anyways, we hit 6:13 for the first mile then finished at 12:49 (6:36). So 6:24.5 average, not what we were going for but we were still on pace. The last mile was kind of rough.

Then over to the hill for whistle hills, 3x15,20,25. Finished to 7.

HR 52

9.25 miles easy, 7:53 average.

Our women took 8th at pre-nationals and our men took 10th. You know, every day I’m more and more grateful to be part of such an amazing team. Helps to know that I don’t suck, it’s just that our team is so good. Have to remind myself that just because I’m on the slow end of the team that doesn’t mean I’m slow. I’m running for an NCAA division 1 nationally ranked team, and I stuck with it even when it was tough. And I’ll continue to do so. Only 4 of the 12 girls from my year are still here and Morgan and I are the only RMs on the women’s side that have come back and stuck with the team. Most either come back for one semester and get married and quit or just never come back. It’s also crazy to remember that I’ve lost 16 lbs since coming home and that it’s all because of running, and few changes in nutrition. Hopefully one day I can be fast enough and start contributing to the team’s success, I’m hoping that happens this track season. Even if I’m on the back end of the traveling team and PR, that’d be a dream come true. I also finally made the decision to stay the 5 years and use my redshirt year, so I have 3 years of collegiate running left including this one. That’s more than enough time to improve and PR, I’m finally back in the kind of shape to be capable of it. It just took me a year, but now I’m ready for my comeback season.