Running is a means and never merely an end

Awesome run to turn around an otherwise rough day. Started out pretty easy, maybe 8:35 pace, and then me and Anya and Halee ended up negative splitting like almost every single mile, all the way down to a 7:04 last mile. I was really happy with that.

Recovery run. Maybe not quite recovery pace. Oopsies

Weight lifting and core afterwards.

6AM- Mile warm up, then went to the lower fields and did a workout of 5x800m, 1x1000m all with 90 sec walking rest. The 800's were supposed to be 3-3:05, so like 6 minute mile or just over pace, and the 1000 was supposed to be the same pace. Can't exactly remember all of the splits but they were somewhere along the lines of 3:14 (had to get a feel for the initial pacing...400m isn't marked), 3:01, 3:02, 3:07, 3:12, then 4:01 for my 1000. Don't know how I feel about those. All I know is that I am TIRED. These killed me, I was absolutely exhausted. My body was fatigued and my mind was still back in my bed in my room. I feel like I had to work super, super hard for these sub-par-on-average splits. Cool down and stretching afterwards.

2:30PM- much needed ice bath.

3PM-7 mile recovery run + 5x10sec hill repeats. Did this one on my own, which was weird...made me feel like I was back home again.

5:30PM- weights and band stretching.

Kind of a weird workout today but I think it was just made to get our blood flowing, not to really be a workout (meet in 2 days). Mile warm up into a 15 minute up-tempo run with a 30 second surge every 5 minutes, into a 2 mile cool down. When I say up-tempo though, I don't mean tempo. It was still pretty easy but a little faster than warm up/cool down. Maybe 7:30 pace or so. So you can imagine it wasn't a hard workout at all. I think my legs needed that though, I've been pretty sore from Tuesday's 800's.

Easy pre-meet this morning with Anya and Kiersten! I'm hoping for an ice bath later today. Plus my PE tennis class got cancelled...yay for super recovery day!

First things first, a little play-by-play... So we warmed up like 15 minutes and then cheered on the boys, did our dynamics, and then relaxed a little while I talked to my parents (Yay! So good to see them!). When we got to the line, coach Bomar told us our mile splits that he wanted us to go out in. Chandler, Anya, and Alissa were 6:15-6:20 I think, I was 6:25, and the other girls were 6:30-6:35. That seemed good to me, because on the way over, I was calculating and decided that I'd like to average around 6:35 splits. I ran a 21:40 on this course last year in the high school division, so I was hoping for sub-20:30 this year. I hit 6:15 I believe at mile 1, but Chandler Anya and Alissa were still properly 5-10 seconds ahead of me, so we were all a tad fast, but just going with the race instead of the pace, which is a good thing as long as you can handle it. I don't even remember a marker for mile 2, but after the race I was told that my 2-split was 13:11, so 6:56 second mile. Then finished 1.1 in 20:27, so about a 6:40 3rd mile, plus the tenth. I feel like I worked really hard in the last quarter of a mile to gain some ground on Chandler, who was only like 20 meters in front of me. We ended up finishing right together, just like Anya and I at our last meet at Western. This time though, I got out-stepped and Chandler got me. Luckily we have the same name on our chests so it was a W either way! Most of the girls on my team were not happy at all with their times, even though I thought they almost all did great. I was pretty happy that I reached my short-term goal, even though I know in the back of my mind that I should be comfortably in the 19's right now, even with some hills like on this course. Last year, my first 5k of the season was a 21:32, so I will say I am happy to be starting back where I was towards the end of the season last year. I expect exciting things towards the end of this season then! Just gotta take it week by week.