Running is a means and never merely an end

6AM - 3.25 mile warm up throughout Spatanburg, then 9x1min hill repeats with a 2 min jog back recovery. These felt hard, but in a good way. Except for the last one, which was just hard. 1.75 mile cool down.

5:30PM - weight lifting and core/strength with Coach Medler's intern. He was pretty cool, and I liked our workout. He teases us about using so little weights but uh hello....cross country runners here? 

I feel like we wasted miles today. Not quality miles at all honestly. Supposed to be a 7 mile recovery run, but we were dumb and waited till midday to do it (like 95 degrees, no shade) and were dying in the heat. So we did 20 minutes on the treadmill, then ran straight outside and did another 34. Ended up being like 6 and a half or so but it felt like I accomplished nothing but sweating a lot. 

Ice bath afterwards. Been thinking all day about how apprehensive I am about our 6AM tempo run tomorrow. I need to start being more positive about it...right now I'm terrified. 6 mile tempo (never ran one that far) with a mile WU & CD incoorporated (I never incoorporate them, I always stop first) at a pace faster than I was doing my 4 mile tempos all summer... Here goes nothing.

6AM - 1 mile warm up, 6 miles tempo at 7:10 pace, 1 mile cool down. Like I said yesterday, I was pretty apprehensive about this workout but I ended up absolutely loving it! My form felt great, my breathing was good (the whole 45 count 2-step breathing thing coach Gracey taught me is practically life-changing), and I never felt out of control, like I needed to slow down or couldn't go much further. Ran the first 5 with Anya, Chandler, Alissa, Kiersten, and coach Gracey, then only Anya and I had to go for 6, and coach Gracey stayed with us. I really like when he runs with us. Most of our splits were pretty solid, except the 1st mile, which was way too slow (7:32 I think?) and the 5th mile, which was like 6:50. Very happy with this workout.

5:30PM - weight lifting and core/strength circuit before a fun team dinner at Mellow Mushroom! Still love my team :)

6AM - 6 mile recovery run with Anya. Went pretty well except we paused breifly for a bathroom stop! We explored a little and found a track at this middle school that reminded me of our crappy track at my HS....which reminded me how happy I am to be at Wofford.

2 mile warm up, then a fartlek workout of 3-1-4-1-5-1 minutes on and 2 minutes recovery after each. 1-min's were supposed to be at 2 mile race pace, 3-4-5's were supposed to be closer to 6:45 pace. This workout was kind of a disaster, but in an unconventional twist - it was way too easy. The hard sections were not hard at all because we were going way too slow if you ask me. I respect the upperclassmen and so I listen to them when they tell me to slow down...but you know there is a problem when the ENTIRE girls team ran it together. Coach Gracey said it best - we "are not interchangeable." We should not have all been able to be together. And I don't mean this in a snooty way at all, but the fact of the matter is that faster people should have faster workouts than slower people, and the fact that I (and all of the top girls) were with the slower girls is clearly not a good sign. But I stayed back because they told me to. Coach Gracey wasn't pleased with that pacing. Anya was especially pissed. She hates when that happens. Mile cooldown afterwards.

Off/recovery day. We'd been out all night but somehow Breck and I managed to drag our butts out of bed and get in a super easy 4. I'm talking like 9:15-pace-easy. We are heading to the Weenie Roast in Charlotte today!! Foster the People, Weezer, Fitz & the Tantrums, etc. I'm so pumped! Probably gonna be yet another night of minimal sleep though. It's starting to catch up with me honestly. I need 2 or 3 solid nights of rest soon.

Sunday long run! We woke up around 6 and headed to Greenville to Swamp Rabbit trail. About an 8:10 paced out and back with Anya, and Coach Gracey joined on the way back. The run took forever I felt like, but it felt alright. Except 1 thing - my plantar tendon thing is killing me in the mornings. I really, really hope that isn't a developing injury. It started feeling mostly better after like 3 miles. Anya says to roll it out every day with a tennis ball. I did that when we got back and I thought I was going to cry it hurt so badly (in a good way, I guess). 

You know it's bad when you nap as long as you sleep. Coach Gracey can see how little sleep we are getting. I gotta work on that this week. College, man.

Recovery run, then weights. Coach Gracey just dropped the news on us that he is leaving for a better coaching job (didn't phrase it like that, but you know what I mean). I'm honestly taking it pretty hard...I understand though, and I'm happy for him & his career. I guess I just forgot that's how the game is played. Sucks that the only coach I've ever had that I truly trusted and respected their coaching abilities is gone just like that. I seriously would have done absolutely anything Coach Gracey told me to do. I'm feeling pretty dismal about these next few weeks of running without him. Hopefully Bomar can get someone else who knows running the way Coach Gracey did.

Did this one by myself, which was actually really nice. I don't think I've ran alone since I got here. 8x10sec hill repeats after.

Ice bath later.

6AM - Last workout with Coach Gracey. We warmed up for 2 miles, then jumped into it. 20 minute threshold run at 6:45 pace, which ended up being more like 6:35-40 pace. Meanwhile, Coach Gracey had us switch off pace leading. After leading half a mile, the pacer moved to the back to let the next person pace. I think this was mainly to work on our terrible pacing job from the fartlek workout last week.

5:30PM - weight lifting and core circuit.

6 miles recovery run super easy. Spent most of the run laughing...its always something with these crazy girls. 

3 mile warm up, 6x2min hill repeats (30 minutes or so total), 2 mile cool down. These did not go well at all. I can hang with the best of them during our interval workouts and long runs and everything else...but when it comes to hills I swear its just so much harder for me than almost everyone else. I almost feel like its because I weigh a good bit more than most of the other girls; I'm not like the typical skinny runner like the majority of them. Gravity is not good to me on hill days. Definitely something I need to work on. Also, I need to start eating less and proportioning my food better. Maybe I can lose some weight too.

Awesome run to turn around an otherwise rough day. Started out pretty easy, maybe 8:35 pace, and then me and Anya and Halee ended up negative splitting like almost every single mile, all the way down to a 7:04 last mile. I was really happy with that.

Recovery run. Maybe not quite recovery pace. Oopsies

Weight lifting and core afterwards.

6AM- Mile warm up, then went to the lower fields and did a workout of 5x800m, 1x1000m all with 90 sec walking rest. The 800's were supposed to be 3-3:05, so like 6 minute mile or just over pace, and the 1000 was supposed to be the same pace. Can't exactly remember all of the splits but they were somewhere along the lines of 3:14 (had to get a feel for the initial pacing...400m isn't marked), 3:01, 3:02, 3:07, 3:12, then 4:01 for my 1000. Don't know how I feel about those. All I know is that I am TIRED. These killed me, I was absolutely exhausted. My body was fatigued and my mind was still back in my bed in my room. I feel like I had to work super, super hard for these sub-par-on-average splits. Cool down and stretching afterwards.

2:30PM- much needed ice bath.

3PM-7 mile recovery run + 5x10sec hill repeats. Did this one on my own, which was weird...made me feel like I was back home again.

5:30PM- weights and band stretching.

Kind of a weird workout today but I think it was just made to get our blood flowing, not to really be a workout (meet in 2 days). Mile warm up into a 15 minute up-tempo run with a 30 second surge every 5 minutes, into a 2 mile cool down. When I say up-tempo though, I don't mean tempo. It was still pretty easy but a little faster than warm up/cool down. Maybe 7:30 pace or so. So you can imagine it wasn't a hard workout at all. I think my legs needed that though, I've been pretty sore from Tuesday's 800's.

Easy pre-meet this morning with Anya and Kiersten! I'm hoping for an ice bath later today. Plus my PE tennis class got cancelled...yay for super recovery day!

First things first, a little play-by-play... So we warmed up like 15 minutes and then cheered on the boys, did our dynamics, and then relaxed a little while I talked to my parents (Yay! So good to see them!). When we got to the line, coach Bomar told us our mile splits that he wanted us to go out in. Chandler, Anya, and Alissa were 6:15-6:20 I think, I was 6:25, and the other girls were 6:30-6:35. That seemed good to me, because on the way over, I was calculating and decided that I'd like to average around 6:35 splits. I ran a 21:40 on this course last year in the high school division, so I was hoping for sub-20:30 this year. I hit 6:15 I believe at mile 1, but Chandler Anya and Alissa were still properly 5-10 seconds ahead of me, so we were all a tad fast, but just going with the race instead of the pace, which is a good thing as long as you can handle it. I don't even remember a marker for mile 2, but after the race I was told that my 2-split was 13:11, so 6:56 second mile. Then finished 1.1 in 20:27, so about a 6:40 3rd mile, plus the tenth. I feel like I worked really hard in the last quarter of a mile to gain some ground on Chandler, who was only like 20 meters in front of me. We ended up finishing right together, just like Anya and I at our last meet at Western. This time though, I got out-stepped and Chandler got me. Luckily we have the same name on our chests so it was a W either way! Most of the girls on my team were not happy at all with their times, even though I thought they almost all did great. I was pretty happy that I reached my short-term goal, even though I know in the back of my mind that I should be comfortably in the 19's right now, even with some hills like on this course. Last year, my first 5k of the season was a 21:32, so I will say I am happy to be starting back where I was towards the end of the season last year. I expect exciting things towards the end of this season then! Just gotta take it week by week.

Easy long run on some new trails behind Spartanburg High. It got dark real fast so we took the last 3 miles pretty fast, maybe 7 flat pace or so. Fun run though!

7AM- Nice and relaxed 7 miler with Alexandra for recovery from this weekend. We went straight from campus out to rail trail, about 2 miles down, and back. My calves feel infinitely better, they were so tight after the race Saturday and during the long run yesterday!! I feel pretty good in general. That is only the first or second recovery run since I've been here that I feel like was actually a true recovery pace, no pushing it at any point.

5:30PM- weight lifting and core session. Foam rolling afterwards.

It feels like fall today!! Mile warm up to the lower fields, then 6x1000m, 4x200m, 2 mile cool down. The thousands were supposed to be at 6:40 pace, or 4:10, but splits were 4:09/4:08/4:05/4:08/4:04. 1 minute between each. 200's were at 40sec each. I feel good about this workout! It didn't kill me like those 800's the other day did, but I feel like I got a solid workout in. That'll probably be our last workout this week since our next meet is Friday!

Ice bath later.

6:30AM- Easy recovery run, mostly off campus. It was so cold this morning! But it felt good as we got into it.

5:30PM- weight lifting and core.

6:30AM- Pre-race practice! 

I'm super stressed right now about my first testS tomorrow...yes tests! My very first ones and they fall on the same day. Bio and Spanish. I hope I can get a decent amount of sleep tonight...I'll be up studying for a while I know.

Well, cut a few seconds off of last weekend's race. I'm not very happy about it though. I ran a 19:42 on this course at state my senior year, and while I know that was my peak, I was really hoping that I was fast enough now to hit near that and be in the low 19's at my peak. My legs felt like deadweight though. Just feeling a little discouraged.

6AM- 6x1000m workout today. T'was definitely a rough one, not necessarily by nature but just because of how my body felt. Splits were supposed to be like 3:50-3:55. Ended up being more in the neighborhood of 4:04-4:09. It was just a really rough weekend for me to say the least and I was throwing up for like 18 hours yesterday.... Luckily it can only get better from here though!

5:30PM- weights.

Recovery run on our own time today. I had a test to study for while everyone else wanted to run so I ended up on my own today. Out and back through Spartanburg, onto rail trail. Pretty good, easy run. 6x10sec hill sprints afterwards.