Running is a means and never merely an end

1.75 mile warm up to the big hill by starbucks. 9x45sec (~150 meters) hill sprints with a jog back down for recovery. Cooled down a little over a mile to total 5. Abs afterwards.

I feel like I have such a harder time on hills than most of my teammates :( girls I have much faster times than can smoke me on a hill, and I am the one with the advantage of being from the mountains. I am 90% sure it's because I am just thicker and heavier than most of them, and that really comes into play when gravity is working against you. Hopefully I'll lose some weight this year. 

8 miles recovery this morning, 8:05ish pace. Cut it close getting back to class on time!

1.3 mile warm up, then fartlek of 2x8(35 sec hard, 85 sec easy) with 2:25 in between. Came out to 3.9 miles. Felt smooth and good, very thankful we did the workout in the morning and not midday. Mile cool down + abs afterwards.

15 minute tempo run at 7 flat pace. Felt lathargic in the heat of the day anyways, but still felt too short to be beneficial. Not very satisfied with this workout. 

Did 2 miles on the elliptical and lifted later at night.

13 at Milliken Park. Felt great! Thankful for a little bit of mileage, finally. I miss 65 mile weeks, I don't like this whole lower-mileage deal. I definitely train best via mileage.

Easy recovery run before church. Felt solid! Still no GPS watch so I don't know my pace, but it's recovery so who cares. :)

6AM- 1 mile warm up, then 6x800m + 1x1000m at 5k pace on the lower grass fields, all with about a minute rest inbetween. Fastest 8 was #2 at 3:06, slowest was #5 at 3:17, so a pretty big gap there I know. 4:04 for the 1k. I felt relatively tired but okay physically, but mentally I was pretty tired and having a hard time motivating myself. Probably because I spent like 12 hours doing homework yesterday and didn't even get half of that of sleep. Neverthless! I'm excited about practice this week, gearing up for our 6k this weekend. Also this week starts my first week of work at Gotta Run Spartanburg! So psyched!

6PM- work was so fun! Love it. After I got back, abs & hips circuit (led by the new assistant track coach, Coach Wilson, woohoo!) before our 4.3 mile shakeout run. Then dinner, then I came back to my room and did a full-body body-weight strength circuit. Don't know why, just wanted to feel something.

Hill day. 9x1minute hills with jog down as a recovery. Hills are so discouraging to me, I feel like its just so much harder for me to do them than any of the other girls (even the girls I have better times than) for some reason.

Abs afterwards.

8 mile recovery run with Breck down rail trail and back. Felt great! Not at first, but 2 miles in I started feeling much more loose and recovered. Abs afterwards.

Core/hip workout with the team later.

Treadmilled 6 miles today. 2 miles warm up at 8:15, 2 miles progressive tempo averaging 7:15, then 2 miles cool down at 8:15 again. Felt easy and smooth. Full-body circuit afterwards.

4.2 miles easy pre-race + strides. I felt great this morning, I wanted to go on for another 8 or 9 miles like that but I figured I should just trust the schedule and rest up for tomorrow morning. My first 6k!! I really don't know what to expect having never ran one, but I figured if each of my 1k's is a little over 4 minutes, I could shoot pretty reasonably for sub-25? It's also hard to gauge because I don't even know where I am 5k-wise right now. I'm just going to go out and try to keep an even pace and not fall off, and run a smart race.

First 6k went alright! I was pretty comfortable at the pace we went out at for a while. My first mile was 6:30, which wasn't far off what I expected it to be. I was at 20:18 at the 3 mile, then just under 21 for the 5k. Slowed down a bit on the 3rd time up the hill on the 3rd loop, probably 10 seconds worth over the course of 300 meters. But then I kicked hard and had a good finish, not letting anyone pass me. Closed in 25 flat.

I don't really know where I should be, but I don't think that was awful. I wish I had come through the 5k 15 or so seconds faster, and then pushed it a few seconds faster up that hill the 2nd and 3rd times around, but other than that I felt good about the way I ran and especially about how I used the downhill to my advantage to really be intentional about striding out and breathing well to pass people. I'm glad to have a benchmark now for future 6k's I'll run. Also good to see a lot of runners from other schools that I haven't seen in a while!

5 easy recovery + abs. 7:50 average.

6AM- 1.3 mile warm up around our normal campus loop, then to the lower fields for our normal fartlek. 2 sets of 8 x [40sec hard + 1:20 easy] with 2:30 easy between the two sets. I love this fartlek. I can always tell on this workout how solid my endurance is, which is super encouraging. I'm not super fast on the fast parts because my footspeed is -10, but I always gain on the front group of girls and am right there with them by the end as they fall back a little bit. That came out to be 4.3 miles. Mile cooldown and abs after that.

6PM- 5 mile shakeout run on the treadmill by myself. I've grown to really cherish alone time on the treadmill. Finally a moment to just think and feel and be alone and still (so to speak). Body-weight circuit afterwards.

7 mile tempo at Milliken! Averaged about 7:15. It felt hard, but really productive and so really good. Anya really pushed me today and made sure I didn't fall off, and I appreciated that so much. Shouts out. Didn't do much of a cool down but just sort of jogged around for a few minutes afterwards to get the heart rate back down.

Awesome workout today! Kind of surprised because we had that challenging tempo like 12 hours before. Maybe its because I finally got over 6 hours of sleep last night (?) woohoo! Anyways, 1.3 mile warm up and then it was 1.5 miles, 1 mile, 1 miles with 90 sec rest between each on the lower fields. We hit 6:38 pace on the 1.5, 6:34 on the 1, then 6:27 on the second 1. Times are fine I guess, not amazing, but I just was really happy about it because I stayed right with Anya and Rebeka the entire time. I'm trying really hard to push myself and stay up with that front pack during workouts. They've been really encouraging as well. 2.2 mile cool down afterwards!

8 miles easy recovery run on my own. Felt amazazazing outside! Went down to rail trail, up a mile or so, back out and into Converse Heights, and then back up to Wofford the regular way. Super enjoyable and relaxing run. Stretching, abs, and hip mobility drills afterwards.

Pre-race 4 miles easy with the freshies + strides. Super excited to race tomorrow!! I am setting a goal of sub-20:30, which is 6:36/mile (which sounds easy enough? I just don't know what kind of shape I am really in right now!). Ready to get after it!

First 5k of the season! I feel good about it. I was shooting for the sub-20:30 and I definitely got that! We did so great as a team as well! Last year at this same race we did awful and only had 1 girl so sub-20, and today we had our top 4 sub-20 and Jamie and I not far behind. Me, Jamie, and Chandler ran together or right near eachother for most of the race, which I was happy about. They had a pack of 4 up front as well, so if we can just close the gap between our packs we'd really move up in SoCon rankings. Anyways, mile 1 was 6:22, mile 2 was 12:50. My kick was really strong, perhaps too strong? As in, I could have gone about a hundred meters earlier but I didn't realize the chute was so close! Still, I'm pretty happy with it. 

3 mile shakeout with Mell + abs when I got back to campus!

Easy easy recovery run with Mell. Went down rail trail and back.

6AM- 7 miles, with the first and last 5 minutes being warm up and cool down and the middle ~6 miles being tempo. Averaged about 7:30 for that tempo section. I feel like the effort was more like 7:15, but I guess the fact that that threshold effort was there is what really matters on tempos less than the actual split like for intervals. 

My right hamstring hurts pretty bad today after that run, unsure why. It's been bugging me a little bit immediately following hard runs for the last 2-3 weeks, but not very badly at all. Don't know why it's so noticeable today.

7 mile shakeout with my pretty little team! We went to Converse Heights and it felt absolutely fantastic outside! Abs afterwards.

1.1 mile warm up to the lower fields, then 7x90sec hill repeats up the JET hill iwht jog back down for recovery - 3.2 miles total. Mile cool down & abs afterwards.

Recovery run. 8:11 average.

6AM- Got very, very little sleep last night, it's pouring the rain, I'm sick, I'm sore... Lot's of excuses to not run well this morning bouncing around in my head but I'm really pleased with the way I pushed through and practiced competitively this morning. Workout was on the grass lower fields; we did 1.5, 1.5, 1 miles with 90 seconds walk (I think? maybe 60?) between each. I hit 10:05 (6:39 mile), 9:55 (6:34 mile), and then 6:35. Stayed right up next to Anya for that 2nd 1.5. Negative split each of those by the 800's. I feel really good about that, specially considering the circumstances. We have a shakeout later, but for now I'm just focused on surviving the rest of the day and not passing out in any of my classes or at work!

PM- 5 mile shakeout with Mell to rail trail and back! Did not wanna do this but I'm glad we did. Legs are achy but probably better than if I hadn't shaken them out.

Long run with Mell! Bekka P. ran with us for the first 6 miles or so, then Mell and I finished up. My legs are pretty exhausted, not really from that but just from the week in general. Anyways, very thankful to have Mell as my running buddy these days!

5 miles on the treadmill. 8:07 average. Abs afterwards.

6AM- sucky workout this morning. 6x800 + 1x1000 with 2.5 minutes active rest between each, at goal race pace. Didn't go so well for me. My legs were just super heavy, not sure why. I felt like I was working at 3 flat effort but I was producing 10-20 seconds slower than that. Albeit, it was on grass and the field was absolutely water logged. But that's not really an excuse because everyone else was running in the same conditions and I seemed to be struggling more than most others. Oh well. Sometimes workouts just don't go super well and that's that.

6PM- 4.1 mile shakeout. Felt much better than this morning.

7 miles recovery, 8:24 avg. First few miles with everyone were ~8:45, last few with Alexandra & Allie were about 8 flat or a little under.

6 mile moderate tempo (tempo + 25 seconds), goal pacing at 7:25. Ended up 7:29 average, with the first mile being 7:40 and the last 7:02. Ran with Halee the whole time, 3 miles out to Upstate and back. Good hills thrown in there. Short cool down + 6x15sec hill sprints afterwards.