Running is a means and never merely an end

Easy 10 miles on this sunday funday, or a little over. Ice bath afterwards. Felt good except I had to stop to use the bathroom at one point, which made me mad because then its like I got a break in the middle of my run, which defeats the whole purpose of a continuous long run. But oh well! It was an absolutely beautiful day; completely fitting weather for the day Jesus rose from the grave!! It's so cool to be able to worship and know God more fully through my running. Happy Easter!

Crappy workout for me today. Mile warm up, then I was hoping for some speedwork. But no one else on my team had ran like the entire break so my coach wasn't about to kick off our first day back with speed work. So she just told us to go do 2 Ashe Loops (1.5 miles of rolling hills), which I thought was weak, so I planned to do 3 of those and then some 150m kick repeats. But I only got halfway done with the second loop when I had to stop and walk because I had to go to the bathroom so badly...this happened yesterday too. I was mad. I was slow and bad on the 2 and a half miles that I did do anyways. So I basically walked the last half mile back to the school and was so angry at myself and a few other things that I just left.

I went home and did 4 hard miles around Buchanan loop (2 miles of rolling hills) on my own. Being so angry from practice really fueled me and I worked hard at these. Finished at a 7:16 avg pace, which was pretty solid considering it is somewhat of a hill workout. I'm glad I got some sort of a workout in today...Lord knows I didn't get it at practice.

Awesome workout today!! I hit or went under on all my splits. Started with a 1.5 mile warm up, strides, drills.

2x200m fast but not all out w/ 200m reco jog between: I hit 35, 37. 

800m @ 2-3 seconds slower than mile race pace (2:51-52): I hit 2:49, which is my mile race pace.

800m @ mile race pace: 2:49 again. 

3x300m @ mile race pace (64-65) with a 100m reco jog between: 62, 61, 61

3x200m @ 800m race pace (38-39) with a 100m reco jog between: 38, 38, 35

1.75 mile cool down and stretching afterwards. I had such a good time with this. I kept expecting myself to get really tired and not be able to hit the next split honestly, but then I kept surprising myself. I felt like the rest time between sets (3-5 minutes) was very forgiving, so that may have helped with me hitting or going under on all my splits. If I do this workout again sometime I might modify that to a little less. The weather was also wonderful today! Pretty windy but other than that, I was running right at sunset and I just couldn't stop thinking about how blessed I am to be able to do what I do. 

I'm excited and relieved to finally be able to say I will be running D1 track and cross country at Wofford College! Livin my dream! I officially sent in my National Letter of Intent today, it's a done deal. Such an incredible blessing!

So after I signed I headed to the rec and did a 30 minute fartlek run of 5x6min intervals (3 min hard/3 min easy). The harder pace was probably somewhere near 3200m race pace. Some of the intervals were harder than others depending on the hills but it was a pretty challenging workout through and through. Afterwards I popped over to Western for some speedwork. I did 2 sets of 5x200m fast, like 800m race pace, with 40 seconds rest between each rep and 5 minutes between sets. I was aiming for 39's and hit mostly 37's, and a couple 38's. 1 was a 40, but that was because this group of guys was completely oblivious taking up lanes 1-3 so I had to veer out to lane 4 on that one. Felt pretty strong on these though and I was happy with my splits! Did some hurdle drills for my hip flexors and a 1 mile cool down afterwards. I can feel myself getting better. If I can get my mind under me too, I think I am gradually putting myself in a position to set a solid PR at regionals!

Half mile warm up, and then yet another day of speedwork. Coach D just had us do 4x800 at race pace (3200 pace, around 3:04) for the first 700, then all out sprint for the last 100m. I kind of threw the race pace thing out the window and hoped to just make them progressive and get faster with each rep. I hit 3:07, 2:59, 2:59, 2:53.

4 miles "easy" afterwards...didn't feel very easy. My legs are so tired. I guess that is to be expected though. It's a good kind of tired though, I feel like this has been a much needed productive week of practice without having to take easy days for a meet.

Core work, arms, and stretching to finish off the day.

Just over 5 miles easy, but it didn't feel easy at all. My legs are absolutely spent. The only thing that probably would have felt worse than running on them would have been not running on them though, because I could just feel all the tightness and lactic acid in them all day. They loosened up a little bit a few miles in. 6x100m strides afterwords. Then lots of stretching and an ice bath, both of which I think helped a lot. I just could not wait for this run to be over...I probably checked my watch 25 times in the 41 minutes I ran. I may take tomorrow off or just do 2 or 3 miles and then get one more hard speed workout in on Sunday.

So dang sore today. I haven't been this sore in months...maybe years. I am taking the day off but going to the Spring Formal at GWU tonight, so maybe dancing some will loosen my legs up a little.