Running is a means and never merely an end

6AM- 75 minute easy run, mostly with Anya and Halee. This felt fantastic. Man I love long runs! Ice bath afterwards before church (which I was freezing during because my legs were still thawing out).

6AM - 3.25 mile warm up throughout Spatanburg, then 9x1min hill repeats with a 2 min jog back recovery. These felt hard, but in a good way. Except for the last one, which was just hard. 1.75 mile cool down.

5:30PM - weight lifting and core/strength with Coach Medler's intern. He was pretty cool, and I liked our workout. He teases us about using so little weights but uh hello....cross country runners here? 

I feel like we wasted miles today. Not quality miles at all honestly. Supposed to be a 7 mile recovery run, but we were dumb and waited till midday to do it (like 95 degrees, no shade) and were dying in the heat. So we did 20 minutes on the treadmill, then ran straight outside and did another 34. Ended up being like 6 and a half or so but it felt like I accomplished nothing but sweating a lot. 

Ice bath afterwards. Been thinking all day about how apprehensive I am about our 6AM tempo run tomorrow. I need to start being more positive about it...right now I'm terrified. 6 mile tempo (never ran one that far) with a mile WU & CD incoorporated (I never incoorporate them, I always stop first) at a pace faster than I was doing my 4 mile tempos all summer... Here goes nothing.

6AM - 1 mile warm up, 6 miles tempo at 7:10 pace, 1 mile cool down. Like I said yesterday, I was pretty apprehensive about this workout but I ended up absolutely loving it! My form felt great, my breathing was good (the whole 45 count 2-step breathing thing coach Gracey taught me is practically life-changing), and I never felt out of control, like I needed to slow down or couldn't go much further. Ran the first 5 with Anya, Chandler, Alissa, Kiersten, and coach Gracey, then only Anya and I had to go for 6, and coach Gracey stayed with us. I really like when he runs with us. Most of our splits were pretty solid, except the 1st mile, which was way too slow (7:32 I think?) and the 5th mile, which was like 6:50. Very happy with this workout.

5:30PM - weight lifting and core/strength circuit before a fun team dinner at Mellow Mushroom! Still love my team :)

6AM - 6 mile recovery run with Anya. Went pretty well except we paused breifly for a bathroom stop! We explored a little and found a track at this middle school that reminded me of our crappy track at my HS....which reminded me how happy I am to be at Wofford.

2 mile warm up, then a fartlek workout of 3-1-4-1-5-1 minutes on and 2 minutes recovery after each. 1-min's were supposed to be at 2 mile race pace, 3-4-5's were supposed to be closer to 6:45 pace. This workout was kind of a disaster, but in an unconventional twist - it was way too easy. The hard sections were not hard at all because we were going way too slow if you ask me. I respect the upperclassmen and so I listen to them when they tell me to slow down...but you know there is a problem when the ENTIRE girls team ran it together. Coach Gracey said it best - we "are not interchangeable." We should not have all been able to be together. And I don't mean this in a snooty way at all, but the fact of the matter is that faster people should have faster workouts than slower people, and the fact that I (and all of the top girls) were with the slower girls is clearly not a good sign. But I stayed back because they told me to. Coach Gracey wasn't pleased with that pacing. Anya was especially pissed. She hates when that happens. Mile cooldown afterwards.

Off/recovery day. We'd been out all night but somehow Breck and I managed to drag our butts out of bed and get in a super easy 4. I'm talking like 9:15-pace-easy. We are heading to the Weenie Roast in Charlotte today!! Foster the People, Weezer, Fitz & the Tantrums, etc. I'm so pumped! Probably gonna be yet another night of minimal sleep though. It's starting to catch up with me honestly. I need 2 or 3 solid nights of rest soon.