Running is a means and never merely an end

7 miles easy with Breck to converse heights, down a few boulevards, and back. 8:16 avg. 

First 2.5 miles with Breck, Morgan, & Halee, then Morgan and Halee turned and Breck and I stayed in Converse Heights again for the rest of ours. 8:01 avg pace. I felt really good today, even hills felt pretty effortless. Coach Harris says we have a double workout tomorrow? So hopefully this will carry over!

Weights before dinner.

Piggybacking 2 workouts today! 

AM- 2 mile warm up, then to the lower fields for 3x2k repeats at 10k pace. I hit 8:20, 8:14, 8:17, or by mile paces the equivalent of 6:45, 6:35, 6:41. We seem to always have a difficult time hitting times on the lower fields...I don't know what it is. I guarentee if we did the same workout on a track, all of those splits could have been at least 15 seconds faster. Luckily we'll be on the track for our second workout, later tonight. Cooled down a mile.

PM- 1 mile warm up + 2 laps of speed changes. 10x400 starting at 5k pace and progressing into 3k pace with a 200m jog between. Splits for the first 6 lingered around 91-92 (5k pace is ~93), then the last 4 were 90/91/89/89/85 (3k pace is ~89). It was kind of interesting because there was a soccer game going on in the field of the track, so there were a bunch of spectators in the stands while we awkwardly ran our workout during their game. The worst part was when the national anthem was playing, but we were in the middle of a rep and couldn't just stop...I've never felt so unamerican. I think someone in the stands yelled at us after it was over for not respecting the national anthem. Obviously he was never a runner. 

I feel really good about these. 2 good workouts, and I feel fine for the most part. I think the day was really productive, and is going to give me a little more confidence for doing so many events in Saturday's meet.

Recovery run at Milliken, mostly with Breck. 7:57 avg.

Breck and I made a nice loop to the high school via Converse Heights, on the trails, and back out down east main street the way we drive in for a good 9 miler today. Halee, Morgan, & Mell were there for the first few miles before they turned back. This run felt so good, and it went by so quickly. I felt like it took half as long as our 6 miler yesterday for some reason. Maybe because it was a way we hadn't ran before, and good running weather.

Pre-meet with Breck! 6 easy + strides. So Coach Harris is using this meet as a workout-meet, which is cool, except it's definitely out of my comfort zone. I am running the 1500, 4x800(what?!) and one of the legs of the DMR, although I still dont know which one, but obviously its a 1600 or shorter. So definitely a good bit shorter and a lotta bit faster than I train for, but good training for my kick and what not in the 5k. I'm still just really excited though, because the pressure to PR is off since I've never really ran any of those things (dabbled in the mile in high school some but that's all) and everyone knows Breck and I are out of our bounds. I'm especially interested in the 4x8, because I haven't raced an 800 in 4 years. It's gonna be crazy. My goals, for what they're worth, are 2:40 800 (lol at my lack of fast twitch) and sub-5:10 in the 1500. In any case...spring break starts the second I'm finished!!

The 1500 didn't go quite as well as I had hoped. I forgot what it was like to get out so fast, and I was in the back almost immediately. I felt frantic, so I sped up and passed a few girls. First lap was 80, so right on pace. After that, I tried to calm down a little bit, but I think I went about that the wrong way and settled in pace-wise too much. Next two laps lagged a little, although I don't know my splits. I just know I felt too comfortable during those laps, looking back. Happy with the way I closed, passed a girl or two on my kick. Finished in 5:17, which was a little slower than my 5:12 first 1500 ever, two or three weeks ago, which was disappointing. I think it is really important for me to know my splits, the way my mind works. Every race I haven't had anyone to tell my my splits, I've lagged during the laps that I didn't know how fast I was going. Idk.

The 4x800 was crazy. I haven't ran that fast in so long. Once again, no one got my splits. But Chandler was the same leg as me on our A team, and she finished maybe 4 seconds ahead of me with a 2:31 split, so I am thinking I ran about a 2:35ish. Which I'm pretty happy with, considering I wasn't even sure if I'd break 2:40! My arms were exhausted....these short races are a whole nother type of tired. Not used to my muscles hurting after a race!

Lastly, I ran the 1200m leg of the DMR, which is the first leg. I don't know much about 1200m times, but I think I did pretty well because I started us off in 2nd place, which we were able to hold on to. At this point I was kind of just happy to be finished. It was a super fun meet with my team, but I was definitely tired after all these fast events that I'm not used to. I'll definitely be tight tomorrow. Final cool down was 2 miles.

Coach Harris gave me a choice for next weekend at Western to either do the 5k or 10k. I'm still thinking about it, and not sure what to do. The 10k would be a really good workout to set me up for a possible 5k PR at conference, and good experience if I am going to run more of the 10k next year. But I haven't really been training for that, mentally more than anything....6.2 miles of circles?? I don't know if I can do that yet without going mad. And as for the 5k, it might be good to have another opportunity to cut my time down before conference, and see where I am at going into these next 2 weeks of hard training before the taper, but the last thing I want is to get sick of running the 5k. I have ran it a good bit this year. So I'm not sure, I'll have to think a little more about it.