You don't need to run every day to be a runner

First, apologies. My last blog is almost the exact same as the last 1, but i forgot the password, so i just made a new 1. Knee felt great in the morning, so i decided to risk a run. Did a loop i've done 4-5 times, and i didn't have my watch. THe loop is about 3.75 miles, but i walked for about .25 of a mile when my knee started to hurt. I went faster that i felt, probably around a 6:50 pace. Knee hasn't been hurting later in the day, so that good! Not ready for school to start.

Was probably longer, but i don't know for sure. I think i've lost my watch, which isn't good. First half downhill, 2nd up. I think i averaged just over a 7:30. The only thing different from my old blog is the blog name. My last blog was "spencesmith". My new blog name in honor of my PLeasant grove friends is "spankysmith".

Went to PGHS cause i had to talk to the driver's ed teacher, and on the way out i ran into zac slater. felt good to see an old face. Also saw tyler penrod, and he called me a traitor. But, my brother calls me a traitor every day. Zac said that PG is gonna be better than last year, but i had already figured that out. He asked about LP's team. And I said if i told him, he would haft to die. just kidding, i told him we have a amazing top 2, good top 4, but our 5th man is where were gonna struggle.

I've forgotten how much i hate 800's. I was reminded today. 20 minute warmup, 2.5ish miles. 4x800 at 5k pace. I was supposed to do 6, but my knee was hurting after the third and didn't do fourth and did fifth. Not very fast times. When I was in the "B" group, i won both of them. But the "b" group is really the c group. 20 minute cooldown but i cut it short. RYan bybee gave us a lecture on lifting weights afterwards.

I would say it was a crappy first day of school. I sat by myself during lunch, and during school hours i only saw 3 people I knew. Basically the whole day i was thinking of how i could be 6 miles away and in a totally different world. I would be goofing off with my friends, telling stupid jokes, wishing about girls(tanner), and having fun. THis probably made my day 10x worse just thinking about pg, but i couldn't help it. Before today i haven't had any big regrets about choosing lp over pg, but today flipped the switch. no offense to lone peak though, i will fit in eventually, it will just take time.

8 minute warm-up, 2 games of tag, 8 minute cooldown. I didn't get caught in the first game, but Zach R. was on my heels for close to 100 yards. Luckily, i'm actully not a bad sprinter. Second game was caught by galen and craik. I had just been chased down bt lil warner, jamison, and jacob jensen, i dodged craik for a second and gave up. I'm such a loser.

Instead of only seeing 3 people i knew today, i saw 12! At this rate, i should know everbody in the school. In a 7 more school days.

2.5 milw warmup at a 7:09 pace. A little fast, i think i would have done a little better if he did it shorter. 4x600 meter hill repeats. Didn't do the third because of my knee, did 4th and fifth. Okayish times, for me at least. Hot outside, but not crazy. ice bath afterwrds. Got my first Lone Peak shirt today.

no clue on the exact mileage, but i know it was at least this far. Went on the BST. Great running weather until the wind came. THe last part jacob jensen and i ran down cedar hills drive. When we were going by ithe roundabout i ran into my brothers. THey were just at the snow cone shack, and they came me the rest of theirs! nice after run snack.

had youth conference in the morning so i didn't go to morning practice. Haven't run yet today, and don't plan to. I ran 3.8 or so miles last week, and just under 25 this week. Don't want to go up too much. just found out solider hollow was today. It's my favorite course and i'm super bummed Lone Peak didn't do it.  Debating wether going to the black light dance tonight or not. Seems really fun, but i don't know anyone, and dancing by yourself is super aquard. Especially on the slow dances! :)

Ran a little past art dye, to the pond and a 12 minute game of dejavu tag. Don't judge me on my spelling. On the way to art dye we went pretty slow. On the way back stephen and i picked it up a lot, because we still wanted to get a good workout in. I think those 2 miles were right around 12, which is okay, but it was uphill on the way back, so i'm satisfied. Was 1 of 2 guys that didn't get caught in tag. Super pumped for grass relays, especially after the 2 mile tempo i did today. Finally finished with register my athlete. Josh Christiansen has been all over my back trying to get me to ask a particular girl from the team to homecoming. She's 1 of 2 cute girls on the team, but i think it's just weird. I will probably ask her just to get him off my back.

20 minute warmup, 400,800,1200,800,400, 20 minute cooldown. The stupid band had t be practicing, so we used a 400 meter lap. Times were slow at first, the picked it up. 82, 3:05, 4:48,2:48,76. The lap was actually 410 meters, so that made me feel a little better about my times. The last 400 felt awesome, reminded me of the best part of my race, my kick. Hated doing laps, reminded me of how much i am going to hate running 2 and 3 miles at AF. I am probably not gonna have a ping pong party. Met a girl in my seminary class that is way cool, and she's cute too. Haven't found out yet if she's been asked to homecoming, i will ask if she hasn't. Haven't ran over 6 miles in a day in over 4 weeks. Feels good to get back on track. My calves have been sore for the past week, for no particular reason. I think it might be going from 4 to 25 miles in a week. tomorrow is supposed to be a recovery run, and i hope we treat it like 1. I don't want to be sore on saturday.

About a minute into the run i had to use the bathroom, so I stopped at the seminary building. Seth, stephen and shaun were nice enough to wait for me, but it was their excuse to get a soccer ball and go to art dye and play. Once we got onto the art dye trail, seth and I flew. It was .8 miles, and our mile split would have been around 5:15. Felt amazing! Soccer was boring, as usual. We made an ab workout called Kim-jon-un. I would have rather gone up the canyon with the rest of the guys, but it was okay. Hopefully my knees won't be sore tomorrow. I don't think Mr. Revelli likes me, because he asked about ab workouts, and I tolally BSed it and siad we did a 20 minute ab workout yesterday. He believed my for a little bit, but the girls told on me. Today has been a pretty crappy day at school, but on the bright side, i haven't worn my knee brace all week, and my knee hasn't hurt a bit!

No run today. Was at the doctors during practice. I have poison ivy, and when i get it it is usually super bad. I have in a bunch on my face. I twas pretty embarressing when i was talking to some cute girls during linch. I got it from tag on monfay. I guess this is my punishment for playing tag when i should have been running. Rolled out my calves, which are still a little sore.

Slept amazingly last night, which was good. I'm not dure how far our run was, but i think it's a good guesstimate. Couldn't breathe very well for some reason. I ce bath afterwards. Pasta party at night. Excited for tomorrow. My last legit race was orem tiger trails, and i didn't do very well. Want to get under 11:45

As soon as I woke up, i could tell today wasn't the day. There were only 3 guys from Lone peak in my race, and they were both super slow. My first mile was around 6:30, which was way too slow. I sureged on the track, and passed about 10 people. After that i zoned out. I was thinking about stuff i shouldn't be focusing on, like who was going to give talks in church tomorrow, etc. I was super slow at the hay bales, both times at the gauntlet i got passed by at least 5 people. When i was heading around the baseball field the first time I felt like dropping out. My stomach felt terrible, which was weird because the last thing i at was some watermelon at the pasta party. My knee felt fine. I have some poison ivy around my eyes, and i had to slow down for a bit to get it out.  I had my watch on, and it said 2.04! That takes off about 15-20 seconds i think. That comeforts me a little, but still a bad race. That takes off At the end, i could tell i still had some gas left in the tank.  I would give myself a C- for this race. Price's time last year was 12:32, so i am definetly gonna get teased by the PG team. I passed a few people at the very end, the only bright spot about today. My spikes were way too small, and 26.2 was there. I got a a pair of flats instead of spikes, but i'm fine with that. Our varsity team did pretty well. We came in 4th of of 30ish. First was AF, Desert Hills, Lehi, LP. Seth had a really good race, he was in the 10's. and he was really close to beating zack. Lil' warner wasn't very happy with his time, which was 10:36. He got 10:15 last year, so i would be pretty mad too. Hopefully by region we'll be able to top Lehi. I'm pretty sure that we will make it to state. We came in 3rd out of 4 teams from region 4. I know that were faster than were faster than westlake, riverton, i think herriman, and 90% sure were faster than PG. Juston did really well, and came in 10th overall in frosh/soph. He dosen't show up very much, but if he becomes dedicated, he'll get up there. I'm pretty sire the guys fighting for the 6-7 spots will be: juston,craik,josh C., stephen, and spencer king if he gets back from having a bad IT band. After that it's me, jacob jensen, and josh ericksen. After that it's a big drop. It was great running weather today, and i was super mad about time, but mostly my place. This just fules me even more for upcoming races. I think with Pleasant grove racing against me, that i can push myself a lot harder tha i did today.I am still learning how to push myself to my limit. I am gonna get a new jersey!

Met at legacy at 7, and it felt awesome to go in the morning again. Did the detour trail by lambert to the mountain run, and took a little detour afterwards. I felt terrible till we got on the trails. I never drink enough water on sundays. Russell did really well today, and towards the end was pushing me, stephen, craik and jacob. Josh C. ran up with jamison today, who was the only varsity runner there today.

Ryan had us go for only 25 minutes which i was suprised about. 2 Stride laps afterwards. Mr. Revelli was talking about pre-region, and the teams the guys would need to watch out for. He said something about one team and i bursted out laughing. I saw tanner when we were running, and i yelled his name at him, but it came out as a high pitched squeak. He didn't say hi back. What a loser.

Did terrible. On the 2nd lap i got tripped by a AF football player, and i landed on my bad knee. My race went downhill from there. Lone peak came in 4th pretty solidly, so we shouldn't have to much of a challenge of  getting to state. Saw my friends from PG, which was nice. 2 bad races in a row. I think I am allergic to the AF course. I am better than what i've shown in these past 2 races. Hopefully i'm over my knee by BYU, and will have a solid race there. The results for pre-region didn't show tteam scores so i did the math:

Af:15

Westlake: 72

Lehi:87

Lone Peak:93

Riverton: 194

Herriman:197

PLeasant Grove: 210

I was worried about my knee today, but it didn't hurt at all! Ran with Josh Ericksen today. Went on the BST. My calves have been "sore", for the past couple of weeks, and i'm starting to wonder if it something else. When I got home, i had my favorite recovery drink in the world:kale,cranberry,apples and cucumbers all juiced up. Everything straight from our garden except for the cranberries.

20 minute warmup, 400,600,400,600,400,600,400. THe field was wet, which was super annoying and gross. Times were a little slower because of that. 400's were within a few seconds of 83. 600's within a few seconds of 2:15. Did a barefoot cooldown which felt amazing. I haven't ran barefoot since running on the beach in North Carolina. Had an ultimate pushing bouncy house contest afterwards.

During halftime of the BYU game.

2 12 minute games of tag, 15 minutes before. We made a new cooldown called pole dance. Lil' warner told us about the sub 5 club shirt, and why we need to be funnier. we only have 4 quotes, but i have 2 of them.

We tried to convince ryan to let us do hills, but he wouldn't go for it. 5x800 with a 400 at the end on the field. It was super wet. We saw AF's team go by, and timo stopped and talked for a bit. One of my most consistent workouts i've done. times were: 3:02, 3:01, 3:00, 2:28, 2:53, 87. On the 400 i thought it was an 800, but everybody started to go super fast, and i was confused. once galen finished ahead i found out it was a 400. Went faster after that, but still a bad time for a 400. I felt pretty good afterwards, so i didn't push myself hard enough. I went up with the "A" group today, so that pushed me a little more. I placed well every time, finishing right behind craik on all of them. I neen to learn to find what my limit is. I know it's a lot faster than what i been doing in workouts and especially races.  My times are usually 2:52-2:55, so i think the mud slowed me down a little. 20 minute warm-up and a little shorter cooldown. I have about 4 hours of homework tonight.

I had an abnormal feeling in my lower left leg, so i turned around before most. I went through shady oaks on the way back, and i found a rotting dragon body. I will think of a name for it by tomorrow.

15 minute warmup, 5,4,3,2,1. 5 min fast, 5 slow, 4 fast, 4 sow, etc. I did really well on 4 &5 pretty good on 2 and 1. on 3 i was in no man's land. Craik, the back of the A group was 20 yards ahead, and the c group was 100 yards behing. 20 minute cooldown, went to icebath but the river was dry.

showed everyone my dragon their all pretty jealous i saw it first. I won speed at the pasta party, but i did terrible at the same time. THe ping pong party was a dissapointment. I won every game by at least 6 points. Not a disspaiontment in me winning, but i had no competition.

I got boxed in on the 1st mile, adn my first mile was in the 8's. Yikes! Sped up, but the damage was done. My last 800 was a 2:18, which isn't far from a PR. I passed 38 people with a half mile to go, and i'm glad i did to get into the top 100. I haven't had a good race yet this season, and i'm getting frustrated with myself. OUr team did pretty well considering we didn't have lil' warner. If he had been there, we would have been right with LEhi. Seth is a freaking beast. His time was faster than tanner's last year, and he didn't come very much during the summer.

Nice and esay up the canyon a little ways. It was super hot today. We found a great spot to take an ice bath, but it was 2.5 miles from the high school, so we bagged it. Talked to my dad about racing strategies. I haven't had a good race yet this year, and were almost halfway through the season. Only in 2 races have i been passed in the 2nd and 3rd mile, and that has been pre-region this and last year. I am gonna go out fast this first mile on saturday, around a 5:45. After that just keep with someone that is moving up. Hopefully this will help me. I'm tired of hearing talk about what a great race they had, and then they ask how I did. It's embarressing to tell them.

We always do hills when it's super hot out. 2.5 mile warmup, 6x600m on tawny's hill, 1.5 cooldown. One of my most inconsitent workouts lately. Times ranged from 2:15-2:27.

To AF and back, then a 12 minute game of tag. Got caught with 5 seconds left in the game.

5x800 at 5k race pace, with a nice long warmup and cooldown. Stunk it up today. I talked to ryan about my legs, which have been aching since the tempo last thursday. He said to ice and roll them out. Rolled my legs out for nearly 30 minutes when i got home, which felt amazing. I finally have my basketball hoop up, so i can start practicing for church ball and junior jazz. My last game was my very last practice at Pleasant Grove. My team dominated. My shot is off, and I need to get it back on track. I think i figured out why PG is having it's homecoming so late. It's on saturday, and we are going to the invite there that morning. It's because it's my homecoming too! People are supposed to win at homecoming, so hopefully i pull out a good race.

Super awesome adventure run. We cute through this person's backyard, and found a little trail. It went by a pond that had a few slack ropes going over it. It was way cool. Went through a few farmer's fields, jumped a few fences, and nolen almost shattered a windshield of a car with a golf ball.

I am finally moving forwards instead of backwards. Woke up with aching ankles, so i didn't know what to think of the day. My race: started out well the first mile, time was 6:03. My second mile i zoned out and didn't realize for nearly 800m afterwards. 2 mile split was 12:58. oops. Sped up in 3rd mile, but i didn't have it in me. final time was 19:12. Definetely my best race so far of the year, but i still know i can go a lot faster. I am right with jacob every day during practice, and he finished a minute ahead of me. Now that my knee is back to 100%, I have another injury. I am gonna ice and roll my legs out a ton this next week, adn try to be 100% by westlake, which is 2 weeks away. I want to get under 18:45 at nebo, and then under 17:30 at westtlake. Our varsity team came in 2nd pretty comftorably, behind AF. PG's top 3 came in before our's, so i got worried for a second that they would beat us. But our 3,4, and 5th man came in right after that. Justin is a beast. He tied Jamison's PR fromlast year today, which was 17:09. He'll easily get under 17 at westlake. Cade did pretty well considering running 3 times in the past month, with a time of 18:15. He'll probably be right behinf justin by the end of the season. Now that he's in, im 16th on the team. I know that I can beat nolan,russell, and jacob, but i need to get my ankles better. Tanner is bouncing back quiclky from being out so long. This is kind of a PR. I did a race simulation by myself during july, when i was actually fast. it was at westlake, and i got 17:48. I'm not counting that as a PR. Today's race was 3.05, so i will count that as a 3 mile, with taking about 12 seconds off.

Was at the orthodontist during practice, and i found out i will get braces within a month, and basically have them until my mission. Also finally went and got my liscense. Saw galen there. Was going to go for a run, but my ankle has been giving me a great deal of pain today, so i figured another day to stretch and ice it wouldn't hurt. Playing basketball was my exercize today. I was putting my older brother to shame, which dosen't happen much. Can't waith for JJ and church ball to start.

2.5 warmup, 4,6,4,6,4,6,4. Times were not at all fast: my ankle wasn't agreeing with me. 1.5 cooldown. Went up the canyon and took an ice bath afterwards. I got to fly an airplane today! Easily one of the coolest things i've done. I got to fly right over my house, saw a bunch of team members houses, and got to go all over the valley.

Slow miles. I hung back with howie today, since my ankle wasn't the happiest. I know that the best thing to do would take about a week off, but it's the middle of the season with westlake right around the corner, and i know i can PR by a lot. I might not run tomorrow, but if i do it will be less than 30 minutes.

Nice and easy. I want my ankle to be fresh for tomorrow. Turns out it's a stress fracture. Will run until westlake, then take a break from running and bike and swim a lot.

We got there a few hours before my race, so it was nice to sit around for a while. We set up camp right next to PG, which was nice. My race: My first mile was 6:05, but i thought it would be around 6:40. I was right with max and zack, and i didn't notice this for a while. i freaked out when i saw them and surged for a good 200 meters. Parker ran his first mile in 5:45, and after that he jogged the rest of his race. On the third lap parker stayed with me, and i put in one of my weakest kicks ever but still beat him by 10ish seconds. My anlke was hurting the whole time. Itook some ibuprofen before, but i don't thinkit helped me much. This makes me really mad, because I still PR'ed, but i had a decent race, with a stress fracture. If i can have a good race with no injuries, i could have been more than a minute faster today. Before i hurt my knee, i was tailing craik in the summer, who ran a 17:13. I can be sooooo much faster.  The varsity boys race was super exciting, especially the top 3 finish. Garek showed everyone what a kick should be. I still can't believe that casey won! Our team came in 4th behind af, desert hills and provo. When we were leaving i couldn't find our bus and i almost got a ride with the AF team. Thankfully i found seth who knew where the bus was. Not a bad day, but i know i can do so much better.

no run today. Ankle in a great deal of pain. It takes me about 30 seconds to go down a flight of stairs.

No run or bike today. I decided yesterday that I wasn't going to run at westlake. But parker has been trash talking behind my back about how he's gonna beat me at westlake. I will run on friday, and crush him. I don't care if i'm injured i will not lose to him.

20 on the bike. Miss going to practice already.

DId the tempo the team did on monday, but did it twice. On the bike. My anlke is feeling much better and should be around 80% for westlake. Even with it hurting, I should be able to PR by at least 30 seconds. I've figured it will take close to 2 months to get back to 100%, which is right before footlocker. I want to go, but i don't think I will. It sounds super fun, but the main point is the race and I would be super out of shape for it.

5 quicker on the bike. Apparently the whole guys team thinks i'm running tomorrow just to beat parker. It's to CRUSH him, and shut him up. Not to beathim, which i've done all season. He thinks he's better than me, and even when i'm injured, he's not. Excited for tommorw. Should be an adventure.

What A day! Got to westlake about 2hrs before our race, so i just layed around for about 1.5hrs. THen we warmup up. Then my ankle EXPLODED. I had a bad feeling most of today, but just shook it off. I decided not to race. It was hurting quite a bit just walking from place to place to cheer the team on. If my anlke wasn't hurting, and if I would of had a good race, then I would have been around 17:40 I figured. As for beating parker, well, my time last year was faster than his today, so i would have beaten him. Our varsity team had it's ups and downs. Lil' warner was mad about his time (15:18), because his time from last year was faster, but he came in 2nd so there not much to complain about. Galen did pretty well, and so did seth. Zack ran JV because he had a piano recital to go to, and he got 15:59. I figured he would be 10-15 seconds faster if he wasn't running solo the whole race. But jamison had to drop out because he couldn't breathe well or somethin, I don't know the details, but he laid on the ground for a good few minutes before he got up, so it was something more serious than just being out of breath. Justin was our 4th man with a time of 16:39. He's gonna be a beast by the time he's a senior. Craik came in 5th with 17 flat. They didn't have time to say prayer and the cheer, so thats the reason we didn't do well. THe church is true! If  zack would have been varsity and jamison feeling well, we would have been top 3 maybe even won.  We'll do much better at Region. PG had a solid race though, and it was cool to see spencer palmer in the top 10.

For my "offseason" which should be between 1 and 2 months, I've chose a few things to focus on.

1. Consistensy- Not very consistent when I'm on my own for aver a week. I need to go biking or swimming everyday.

2. Core-Haven't done a solid ab workout since summer. This needs to change. Will do 150 pushups every day.

3. Pushing myself- I know I can push myself hard then what i've been doing. A LOT harder. Will start with this on the bike, and transfer over to running once I'm back.

This is my last post of my XC season. THis may seem a long ways off, but it really Isn't. I WILL MAKE VARSITY NEXT YEAR. I know I can, if I am smart with my training, stay injury-free, and really learn to push myself.  we are only graduating 1 senior on varsity, lil' warner. The 7th guy on the team was josh ericksen, if you take out the 2 seniors. I know I can beat him, and the other JV guys ahead of me. you might have read my track goals for this year. You probably think I can't do these, but I know I can. Not many people believe me, but I know I can. I know I could be up there with price, austin and juston. I need to show it.

Runner card is the best! The results are up less than 2hrs after the last race.

Busy day, was only able to get 8 on the bike today. I did average 27 mph, so that's good. Same amount of uphill as downhill.

15.2 on the bike, south on the canal. Saw tracer walking which was hilarious. Just like old times. Also saw luke, who was working 5x harder than tracer, and some of the girls on the team. I did a 5,4,3,2,1 with short warmup and long cooldown. Here's the distance with the different times:

5-1.62 miles

4-1.18 miles

3-1.004 miles

2-.78 miles

1-.64 miles

long cooldown, and went slow the first few miles, but a bunch of people were passing me and that drove me crazy. Once a person went by that was going at a nice pace (appromamitley 25mph), I stuck on him until I went off the canal. Averaged 22.1 mph for the whole ride. 100 pushups in sets of 20 afterwards. After this week I will increase the #  in sets, the the number of total pushups.

I have work on friday, and i'm going to miss region. I'm supr mad, but not worried. At pre-region, we came in 4th and 5th place was 101 points behind us. If our top 5 runs a averaged race, they should make it to state, unless if somebody pulls a westlake. But 101 points is a lot to make up.

20 minutes of abs and 100 pushups.

only abs and pushups the last few days. Today was region. I had work, so I had to leave early. I got to watch every race except the varsity guys. I wasn't worried though. We made it with 4th place. Juston was talking about varisty nexy year. we onlt lose 1 guy. GAlen,seth,jamison,zack, and probably juston are locks. Craik most likely. Juston was guessing josh or stephen. I will make sure i am the frontrunner for that spot by track. If i'm back to 100% by december. Which I should be. It dosen't hurt anymore to walk, which is an improvement. However, I played 21 yesterday at the pasta party( I won), but my ankle hurt a bit afterwards. Should be back to running in 2-3 weeks. I need new shoes.

28 mountain biking miles. Did hogs and a little bit through lambert. For fall break i'm biking the white rim trail in canyonlands. Im super excited. My ankle is feeling better than ever. It still hurts when i'm going up hills on my bike, but I expect to be injury free the saturday after state.

I found my dream long run today, which is my favorite. My family went offroading up Timpanogous road probably 2x as far as we did at XC camp. Someone will drop me off at timpanooke campground, I will go on the road until I get to grove creek canyon, then go on the BST until my house. Somewhere between 15-20 miles. So it's managable. It was beutiful. Maybe the day after region track or something, but it would be best in the fall w/the beutiful colors. I am tired of not running, I can't imagine what tanner felt like for the 4+ months he was out. I respect him much more now. Not that I didn't in the first place. No pain today!

8 slower on the bike and 100 pushups in sets of 20.

leaving for thw white rim trail today. Should be lots of fun. Planning on running again the week after state, depending on how i'm feeling.

Day 1 of the white rim trail. Today was awesome. 19 miles, and mostly downhill. The people biking were: my brother nathan, my dad, me, my cousin eli, my mucle paul. My dad was way behind everyone else today. THe pace pusher today was my brother, who mountain bikes for PG. Averaged 13.9 mph, which sounds slow, but mountain biking is a lot slower than road biking.

Day 2, we did 45 miles today. We had a good climb where we gained about 250 ft of elevation in a little over a quarter of a mile. It was pretty rocky, and I gad to get off my bike for a bit. I did run up the part that I was off though, so i still got a good hill workout for the day. Mostly a slow descent today. Lost of sand, which slowed us down a lot. Eli had a pretty nasty endo today, and he broke his nose. He wsa going 23 mph at the time. I feel pretty sorry for him, becasue he didn't bike the rest of the trip. I was the pace pusher for most of the day, until the last 10 miles when I bonked hard. My wrists are just about dead. Going over hard rock isn't very fun. Came across a guy that ws running the trail Kudos to him. He was 41 miles in when we ran into him.

Last day and definetily the hardest. went 36 miles and gained over 2500 feet of elevation. For the first bit I was with my uncle in the lead, who was totally mashing it. He does ironman's, so his endurance really kicked in today. Once we got to the part where we came up out of the canyon, he took off. This climb we went up 1250 feet in 1.2ish miles. I didn't stop at all, which dosen't sound like much of an accomplishmet, but for me, a guy that hates hills especially on bikes, it's a feat for me. After that we had 15 miles of dirt road that kept going on forever. went with my uncle on this part too. We were cruising. We went up more than 1000 feet of elevation during this stretch, and we averaged about 14mph. I was ready to die. Once we got onto the road my uncle's super powers unleashed and he took off. I still pushed it, but nowhere near as fast as my uncle went. Overall a fun time, I'm not sure if I would recomment it to someone or not.

10 on the bike. I am tired of biking at the moment. I don't think my mom will let me go to state.

100 pushups in sets of 25. My ab workout was having my 2 year old brother jump on my stomach for about 5 minutes. My parents are letting me go to state, but I need to go to school until 3rd period. Should be exciting! I'm willing to bet that we will come in 4th or 5th tomorrow. AF, davis, lehi, us or westlake. The course is pretty hilly, but lil' warner is amazing at hills, and zack is pretty good. If everyone has a mediocre race, and if zack does pretty well, then we will beat westlake.    I am gonna start up running again once I get new shoes. I will probably get some on saturday. I am gonna get some saucony's, I have had 2 pairs, and have never had any problems, so i'm gonna go with them. Probably a kinvara 4 or virrata's

State today! Exciting, yet torterous. Our guys team did okay, I think. Lil' warner had a bad race and seth terrible. On the bright side, juston did super well, and ran a 16:42. I wanted to run SUPER BADLY. I am gonna start on tuesday. I know that I can be running @ sugarhouse next year, and I will. We came in 5th. I feel sorry for connor mantz, but everyone knows he's quite a bit faster than Josh. He's injured, and he still barely lost to him. Parker was talking the whole time about how AF was  demolishing everyone else. It was super annoying. He's better friends with more people on the AF team than ours. The bus ride home took forever. He went to costa vida afterwards, which was awesome. I ran about a mile with cheering people on, and my legs didn't hurt, but they were heavy. But they should be after a month of not running. Craik and juston said i'm their favorite junior. They're my favorite freshman.I read an article on how region 4 dominated state yesterday. It mostly talked about AF, but it said the top finishers from the other teams from region 4. It said lil' warner for out team , which was funny, because galen beat him.

only pushups the last few days. About 200 a day though.  On thursday my dad tried to convince me to rest for another few weeks, but I wouldn't go for it. But, yesterday, my ankle hurt some, for the first time in about 2 weeks. I took that as a sign to take more time off. This "offseason", has really been good for me, and it's been good in more ways than just physical. I've been pretty inconsistent with my training, and I know that's why I've gotten injured. I have learned to really push myself on the bike, and swimming, but in sprints. I am core in stronger than it used to be. Another 2 weeks should do the trick. However, my parents want me to take the winter off like I did last year, and they want me to get a job and work everyday. I am fine with getting a job, becauese I need one, but I will not take the winter off. I will be close to the same speed that I am now, which isn't very fast. I don't want to be the senior that's on JV, and if I take the winter off, I will probably be that guy. I have already lost ground this last month being off, and I don't want to get behind any more.

Just for fun, I took the state results and took out the seniors for some predictions for next year. Lone peak and Lehi are the only guys that have at least 5 returning varsity guys. According to the state results with no seniors:

AF: 1,3,10,?,? Hagen and Jason manning will probably be 4&5, not sure on places

Lehi: 6,12,15,36, and ryan raff is injured but will be top 15. At least 79 points

Davis: 5,7,16,24,33  85 points

Lone peak: 9,13,22,31,35 110 points

Next closest is more than 50 points back. Already excited for nexy XC season and track!

Can't go to the XC banquet because I haft to film a stupid volleyball game for sports broadcasting. I'll probably get the slacker award, or the always injured award. 10 miles on the bike today with a good ab workout. I've lost 12 pounds since I've gotten injured. Which is weird. Maybe I'm doing what wrestlers do, lose fat then gain muscle. Just kidding. That would be pretty rad if i did that though. I would be super toned. Life is good. The NBA season starts today. Go Thunder! 1 week till I'm running again!

10 mile bike ride yesterday, went pretty fast, for going on trails. 5 days till im ruuning again!

As soon as I get my new shoes, I can run again. I talked to ryan, and he said my altra's most likely caused mt injury. I am gonna get saucony kinvara 4's, becasue 5's are still too expensive at th e moment. I don't know of any stores that carry 4's anymore, so I am getting them offline. It might be more like friday or saturday when I first run again.

100 pushups, 16 on bike going at 22.7 mph. It's getting cold outside. I ordered my shoes on monday, and I thought it was 5-10 business days, but it will only take 4-5 business days to get to my house. So, next tuesday at the latest. I forgot about the weights thing this morning.

Utah is ranked #3 in the nation for all states in boys and girls XC, behinf calfornia new york

Fianlly started running again! My dad went next to me on his bike, but we still went slow. No pain whatsoever in my legs! I told myself not to look at my watch, because it dosen't matter how fast i'm going right now. I need to just get out and run. I still checked my watch a few times though. At the end, 3.69 miles at a 7:54 pace. Not bad for a first day back after 6 weeks. At a few points (when flat), I was going at a 6:30 pace without even realizing it! Stretched for a while afterwards. I know that one of the reasons I've had problems with my knee and anlke is because of lack of stretching. At PG I would do around 30-40 miles a week and stretch well every day. At LP' through out the summer and the season I was doing between 40-55 miles a week with little or no stretching. I need to get back into the habit of stretching well, and sticking to it.

3.57 miles @ 7:24 pace. Felt much easier than is should have, with the kind of shape i'm in right now. The earliest I will be able to go to practice is Friday. I should still be able to go running by myself more. I saw Jamison driving home during the run. It get a lot colder once the sun goes down. Was 37 degrees when I got back to my house!

was going to go longer, but I was freezing. At about 8 at night. Quickish, averaged a 6:34.

Up in the foothills o Mt. mahogany. Found a super cool single track trail. I'm going to name it something, but haven't found one that fits yet. Also played basketball for a few hours.

Got to Arizona today for Nike Regionals. Ran the course at a pretty good pace until we caught up to Wasatch, and ran the last 800ish with them. I beat Josh Collins, which is awesome. Strides afterwards.

cooldown w/the team. Exciting day! We got 8th, which we were happy with. Zack and Jamison both did really well. I wish Zack Jacklin would have won, but everyone has bad days. AF only beat Davis by 3 points! I'm rooting for AF at nationals.

Would have gone furthur, but I only had a 30 minute window to run. Saw zack walking home from practice, said his foot was hurting or something. Went down and saw my dragon, and ran around in the neighborhood below that for a bit. With about 1/2 miles left, my ankle started hurting. I walked for a little bit. And of course, that is when they guys team came into view. They've diesovered my winter running style. Sunglasses and 1 glove. Averaged a 7:21. Ankle is hurting a bit afterwards.

Really good get back into shape type of run. I started and felt really really good. I decided to go on the BST. I kept a really good pace for the first 3 miles, with splits of 6:23(uphill), 5:58, 5:51. On the way back I rolled my ankle(my good one), and had to walk it off for a little bit. It hurt a little the rest of the way back and I averaged a 7:04 for thise last few miles.

Great run. I did Coach Morrison's turkey trot loop from my house. This run was very good for me, in personal ways. I needed a run like today to get me back on track. Today was the first step of things I need to do in order to get to the level of running that I want, and should be at. Averaged a 6:47.

My ankle hurt a bit saturday after my run, so I decided 2 days off should do the trick. No run, but did a good core workout consisting of 5 different 90 seconds abs, and 5x25 sets of pushups.

I had to babysit when it was light outside, so after dinner I went to the PG rec center. I think my legs have something against that track, because my legs always hurt when I run on it. Did 3 relaxing miles, @a 7:10 pace. Did the eliptical afterwards for a hard 30 minutes. Was sweating buckets at the end.

My run started by racing down to the high school, hoping some guys would still be doing weights. Sadly, the last people were just leaving. I did run a 5:04 for the 1st mile split( A PR, but it was downhill, and unofficial with no witnesses), and I was super pumped with that. Despite that very fast start, I still felt very good and averaged a 6:18 for the last almost 4 miles. I've noticed that on days I do between 3 and 4 around a 7 minute pace, I feel super good the next day. Maybe I should do this before races, because my 3 mile split was 17:18( I had about a 2 minute break while going into the high school and talking to the guys), and I was still able to keep a pretty good pace for the remainder of the run. For the rest of the week, I am going to go on longer, slower runs. I've done plenty of short and quick runs, it's time for my endurance to get up. Good luck to all those running Footlocker!

Maybe the worst run ever. I wanted to go for 7ish miles. My parents had me bring my little brother along, who went on his bike. He was whining and complaining the whole time. I went to drop him off at our house so I could go for another half hour or something like that, but then my ankle started to hurt pretty bad. Good thing I have tomorrow off. I've had an overload of homework the past few days, so I haven't been able to go running.

Congrats to Connor and Garek for qualifying for Nationals! Two from the blog, thats pretty cool. Had 2 last year go, connor and Kramer, although he didn't use his blog. I wonder how many will go next year....  And congrats to my team. I looked like Zack had a phenominal race, and JAmison had a good one too. I miss racing a lot. My last race was in September. I wasn't planning on doing the indoor races, but will probably do them now because I want to see super badly where I'm at. That 5:04 on wednesday got me excited for track.

And congrats to American Fork for coming in 5th at NXN today. Not the way they wanted to end the season, but kudos to them.

LP turkey trot route from my house. Nice and easy. My satellites stopped working 1.5 miles in which was quite annoying. Luckily, I know the distance from my house to the start and finish, so I know the total mileage. A good ab workout afterwards. Haven't done a solid one in a few weeks.

Definetily a more dissapointing run. I ran home from my dentist's place, which is by the hospital. I was really ticked because I had a really, really small cavity, but big enough to call it one. If I wouldn't of had one today, I would have hit the 10 year mark with no cavities, and my parents said they would pay me $100 if I went 10 year without one. Anyway, I was really ticked about that. I didn't look at my watch the whole time, which was very dumb of me. I though it would take me about 40 minutes to get home, but it took about 25. I was about to go and do 20 more minutes by my mom stopped me. I did go at a faster pace then I thought I was, I averaged a 7:10. It felt really easy, which was a good thing. I gave my bag of floss and stuff to a homeless guy. Merry Christmas to him! I thought it wouls be about 5 miles, but I was way off. Not too happy with today, but every day can't be a good one. 100 pushups afterwards.

8x400 with 1.3 warmup and cooldown. Felt very sluggish, probably because the last workout I did was the tuesday before the Nebo invite. Times were within 2 seconds of 80 on all of them. I don't have much of a problem pushing myself hard on distance runs by myself, but with workouts, especially intervals it's super hard to fast with no one to run with. The sprinters had practice today, to start to get ready for indoor. I heard them making fun of the distance guys because they didn't have practice today. I went up to them and raced the smack talker in a 400. My times were around 80 on all of them but this one, which was my 6th. I got 63, and he got 70. Sprinters are wimps compared to us. Sprinting is a talent, distace running depends on how hard you work.

Easy miles on the BST. The reason for the low mileage this week: I need to start running every day again, but I don't want to go up to much in mileage in a week. Doing less than 5 most days this week, will go up like 3-6 miles a week after this week, until I get to 45 or 50 then will stop. I should be able to start running with the team again next week! Mo Farah ran 20 miles on the treadmill today! That would get super boring. 5 miles  is a stretch for me, I get way too bored on those things.

Slow miles. Didn't feel good at all. Excited for the next few weeks when I can go on distance runs that actually do stuff for me. Galen calls these runs garbage miles. I didn't agree with him at first, but I am starting to see his point of view.

Today dosen't count as the weekend. I had the ACT until noon, squeezed in a quick run, and am working on homework and projects for the rest od the day. I went by every guys house on the team that lives in Cedar Hills. Went by howie, jacob, shaun, galen, jonas, jacob bybee, zack, josh, max, seth and jamison's houses. Didn't go easy, but Didn't go hard either.

Good job to connor mantz and josh collins, 10th and 11th at nationals. Garek got 27th, and he's the 6th returner for nexy year!

The worst i've felt in a while during my run. I'm gonna set up my runs shorter this week, so on Saturday i can do a longer one, like 7 or 8 miles.

Easy miles to molly's and back. My right hand got really cold on the way back.

Randon fact: Casey Clinger is ranked #23 in the country for XC. Only underclassman in top 25, and 4th returner for next year.

Ran to one of my old friends houses and back. Was harder than it should have been. Nothing note worthy happened on the run today

Ran to art dye and back with a little loop at the end to get another half mile or so. Mediocre effort until the last half mile, which was half down and half uphill, and I ran a 2:28. I got a high-5 from Sheldon with about a mile to go, which was cool. Will do 8ish miles tomorrow. I might be able to go to practice, which is a lot dinner than running by yourself.

Mountain run extended with a little extra when I got home. Only lil' warner and josh were at practice besides me. I felt like crap the whole time. I averaged a 8:12, which shows how slow I went. It wasn't very cold today, but it was wet. It was pretty slippery up on the trails. I got 28 miles exactly this week, which is what I needed to get. Probably like 32 next week. I'm not gonna start following the 10% rule until i'm above 35 miles, because less than that isn't much mileage.

Black trail and then towards burgess, but I didn't go into it. 7 people at practice today. I felt better than I did on saturday, but still not very good. Ran with Spencer King most of the time. The wind seemed to change directions whenever we did, and it was always going in our face. My feet got pretty cold from all of the slush we ran through. Running through rain can be fun, snow is a blast, but super wet snow, which is what it was today, wasn't so much fun. I'm gonna do about 32 miles this week.

It was much colder today than yesterday, so we went on a sun run. Went up into the hog's area, and turned around with Josh Christensen before the other guys. We wnet down a road that was 1.2 miles long, and we ran a 5:31 for the mile split without even realizing it, which is pretty cool.

We just goofed off most of the time. Elle was the only girl there, so she went with the guys. We did hobbit hole and timberline loop, jumped a few fences, and ran through a few backyards. Ar westfield elementary their were a few balls in the field, so we played 4-square for a bit, and then played lava monster. Will do inbetween 4-5 tomorrow. the "run" today was fun, but looking back, I wish I would have gone off on my own and done an actual run. My fingers just about froze off today.

A super fun run. I ran at about 2pm, and it started to snow as soon as I came out of my front door. I went at a pretty slow pace the whole time. I went faster on the uphills than the downhills, because of all of ice. I found a good sized icicle (about 3 feet), and ran with that for a while, pretending that is was a baton and I was in a long distance relay race. It's been a great Christmas. I'm extremely grateful that it has FINALLY started to snow. I'm also glad that the temperature is finally going down, so that the pond can freeze over and we can play ice tag. Merry Christmas!

Another easy run. . It was in the low 20's when we went running.

2 good miles on the treadmill later, 5:45 pace. I'm super excited for track, and I feel like my goals will be defeated in the season.

Good, quality miles. Splits ranged from 6:12 to 6:56. I can tell i'm finally getting back into shape.

Easy miles through a lot of Alpine. I got seperated from the main pack, so I went a different way then everyone else. I ran by myself again. Since i've came back to practice, it's really stunk. I've ran by myslef probably 80% of the time. But I know with hard work, I can eventually catch up to the fast guys. I have more things to improve upon then they do. I'm finished with being one of the "slow" guys. Solid core workout afterwards.