Running is a means and never merely an end

AM - 3 miles easy. It is really windy today but it was a beautiful little run! God is so good.

PM - Got some mile repeats in at the track at FHS after 4-wheeling for the afternoon with Harrison! He timed my splits for 4x1600. I wanted them between 6:15-6:30 but the wind was so bad that I wasn't gonna be too upset if I wasn't right on, but they went well enough. I hit 6:18/6:22/6:34/6:??...for that last one, I did continuous 200's (jog 200/fast 200) within the mile so Harrison was getting my 200 splits (39/39/39/38) which is why we didn't get a full time. 1.25 mile warm up and .55 mile cooldown.

Easy 7(ish) mile recovery run + 6x100m strides and an ice bath. Felt alright except my left leg/foot was hurting me really bad for the first few miles. I have no clue why. It is like a pain in the middle of my foot with every left stride that stretches up through my fibula - not my calf or achilles but it sort of feels like it hurts from the inside. I think I am gonna do a tempo run tomorrow so hopefully it will feel better after a night's rest.

Well after school today someone backed into my car so I had to stand around at the high school with the state trooper and all that until 4:10, and by the time I got to the rec and changed, I had less than an hour to get in my workout before 5:30 when I had to babysit. I stuck with my workout but had to shorten my warm up and cool down a lot. So .6 mile warm up, 3 mile tempo run, 1.3 mile cool down. My mile splits were 6:56, 7:03, 7:08 for a 21:07 3 miler (approx. 21:45 5k pace?). I felt like I was going really slow. That may have had something to do with the weather finally being so warm, I'm not sure. This was my first continuous tempo since indoor season though, and I remember now why I hated these so much. I would take a 10 mile run or any speed work over tempo runs, I don't know what it is!

Pre-meet today. 13 minutes in the grass with the girls, then I went off and did another 10 with Evan. Stretched and iced afterwards. I am really nervous about tomorrow because it is every team in our conference except West Henderson (not really worried about anyone there though). This is the first time I will see most of our conference teams.

Today was probably the easiest meet I've had so far, not because of the lack of competition (it was probably the biggest meet we have been at) but because of my events. All I did today was the 4x800 and the mile. I was anchor leg on the 4x8 and we were losing so bad at that point that Coach D just told me to take it easy so I could put up a solid time in the mile. I basically up-tempo jogged it with a 2:55ish split. My mile went pretty well. I won, but this was the first win that I felt that I actually earned (haven't had much competition in any of my other wins). Colbie Williamson was right behind me really forcing me to push my pace for the first 3 laps. She faded off a little bit the last lap, but I never really struggle with the last lap anyways. I was really thankful to have her pushing me because I was worried I wouldn't put up a good time with the heat and humidity being so high. I ran a 5:45.7 and I think Colbie ran around a 5:51 or so. I was pretty satisfied with that under the conditions, but I really need to start PRing again (sub-5:42). We have a huge meet on Saturday so I didn't want to jump in the 2 mile too, but I went ahead and did a 2 mile cool down.

Practice got cancelled so I went and did a pre-meet 3 miles easy and 6x100m strides. I'm feeling so ready for tomorrow. This is by far the biggest meet we will have gone to this season (like 20+ teams) so there should be lots of competition. I'm feeling really good mentally, I am determined to go ahead and start setting some PR's here in these next few weeks.

Opened today up around 10:15am with the 4x800! We were ranked 8th out of 9 I believe, but only 6 teams showed and we ended up 4th. So I was proud of them for that. I have no clue what my split was but I felt really strong!! It was a good warm up if nothing else.

My 2 mile wasn't untill about 4:50, so needless to say I had lots of down time today. Luckily I brought my Eno so I spent most of the day hammocking underneath the bleachers in the shade so the sun wouldn't wear me out. Warmed up a mile with Shawnda Martin. My gameplan for today was to run a fast 1st mile to bank some time for when I get tired on laps 5 and 6. It worked out pretty well I think - I usually run like a 6:10ish mile split and today I hit 6:03. I think I slowed a lot on the 5th but I know I had a really good last lap. I didn't have anyone anywhere near me the entire race, but competing for the clock gave me some solid motivation. Came out in 3rd, after this little prodigee from East Lincoln and Shawnda, with a 12:23. That wasn't a PR but it was an SB, which I was happy enough with considering the heat. Mile cool down afterwards. 

Later we went through Wofford because we were so close anyways and I wanted to stop and look at the track again. We got there and I realized today was the Terrier Relays!! Super lucky coincidence! It was so fun to end the day catching up with all my college friends from WCU and Wofford. Coach Bomar is going to send me my National Letter of Intent soon so I can go ahead and sign. I can't wait!!