Running is a means and never merely an end

I have 2 meets this coming week so I took today off from running to let my legs get nice and rested. 2 mile walk and a little bit of stretching!

.5 mile warm up, 4 mile workout, .5 mile cool down. My workout was a continuous ladder of 5-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4-5 minutes, each set alternating between easy and hard (ex. 5 minutes easy, 4 hard, 3 easy, 2 hard...etc). I felt good, but like I was getting a good workout in. I am a little frustrated that I had to stop and go to the bathroom on the second 3-minute rep, but I guess you can't do much about that. Tomorrow will be nice and easy, then meets Wednesday and Saturday.

I was supposed to just have an easy 20 minute jog and strides today to rest for my meet tomorrow, but my meet got cancelled yet again. So...2.2 mile warm up around campus, speed workout, 2.2 mile cool down. Speed workout was 2x(5x200m) fast, with 30 seconds between reps and 3 minutes between the two sets. I'm disappointed that the meet was cancelled but I'm trusting God's plan on this. Hopefully this just means I will just have a few more days to get ready for Saturday's indoor meet in Winston Salem.

4 mile tempo run on the treadmill starting at 7:13 mile pace and gradually speeding up to finish at 6:33 pace. I am not a fan of treadmills but it is always nice for tempo runs to know exactly what pace I am going and exactly how far I have gone. Half mile cool down and some abs afterwards.

6 miler with a few striders afterwards to begin my taper into Saturday for my first indoor meet!! I am very, very nervous, but excited!

I took it easy today with a 20 minute jog, strides, and some good stretching. I'll be racing in the 1600 and 3200 of the JDL Mini-Meet (#3) tomorrow night! My main goal is just to qualify for state, which calls for a 5:50 and 12:50. Theoretically, though, I really want to PR! And I really think I could, I don't know how my speed is right now but I am positive I have more endurance than I've ever had before, so I hope that base will help me on the 2nd half of those events. We'll see!

I am so excited to write about today!!! So, today was my first indoor meet ever (I've always played basketball in the winter up till this year). It was at the JDL Fast Track in Winston Salem, which is where indoor states are for NC. My main goal going into the meet was honestly just to qualify for states in the mile and 2 mile, which means I needed to run at or below 5:50 and 12:50. My previous PR's were 5:48 and 12:26...and I say previous, beause I am so happy to finally say that I PR'd in both with a 5:45 and a 12:17!! This was the most competitive meet I've ever been to, probably just because no one really does indoor track "for fun," its really only comprised of serious runners. Given that, I was 7th out of 26 in the 1600 and 5th out of the only 5 in the 3200. Today is the first day I have ever in my life been last, but honestly I don't even care about the placing because I am so ecstatic about my PR and qualification for state! The track is 200m, so it was obviously many more laps than I am used to. But I actually really enjoyed it, I felt like it went by faster. I couldn't get in a very long warm up because they closed the track when the 4x8 began, so I only warmed up half a mile, then cooled down half a mile after the mile and before the 3200, and then cooled down another half mile after the 3200. Overall,  consider today a success for sure. It is so awesome to see all of this winter training paying off.