You've got to want it to win it

I was going to go running this evening, but I was with family and we were having a lot of fun playing tag and other games.  I lost track of the time and when I came home it was too late to go running, so I had to do treadmill.  It was really boring as usual, and it kept slowing down again.  So I only went 2 miles, but its better than nothing.

This morning I got up early and went running with some of my neighbors.  I don't remember the exact course, but we were running on nonbusy streets.  We ran up to the country club and back.  It was a good temperature for running so that was nice.

So tonight I did a speed workout at Sugarhouse Park.  We started with a 2 mile warmup and then did a mile speedchanges on Highlands track.  The workout wasn' that bad, we were doing 5 sets of a 400 with 1 lap recovery, 200 with 200m recovery, and a 100 with a 300m recovery.  We stopped at the hose a few times because it was really hot.  We had to splash ourselves a few times.  At the beginning Bre got a bloody nose so she ran with it for a few sets, but then she was ok.  We weren't timing the 200s or 100s, but my best time I got on the 400 was a 1:18.  Afterwards we did a 2 mile cooldown around the outside of the park.  I felt pretty strong, and I think I have been showing improvement in the last few weeks.  A few weeks ago I was hitting 1:30s on my 400s so I'm proud of my times I've been getting.    

Todays run was fun.  It was the first day of our high school cross country summer workouts.  It was an easy enough run, and it was cool to be running with people that I haven't run with in a long time.  We did a 2 mile warmup around the perimeter of Sugarhouse Park, and when we came back we stretched and did some strides.  After that we did some drills, starting with high knees a few times, then butt kicks, and then we did one where we stepped sideways over an imaginary wall.  After that we went and did crunches and pushups in the grass.  We did a set of 25 crunches and then 15 pushups, and we did this 3 times.  When we were done we were covered in wet grass so it was hard to get it off.  Then for a cooldown we just did a lap on the road and Bre and me ran through the sprinklers and got really wet, but at least the grass came off.  When we finished Bre, Amanda, and I went to the river to take an ice bath. The water levels were really low, so we were kneeling in the river.  When we were done there were spots on our knees where we had our knees on rocks.  The water was very cold so It felt nice.  It was a fun workout, and I look forward to the rest of the summer.

This evening I ran from my house to what we call the VA loop.  The loop is 4 miles I think, but I wanted to get in more miles.  So running back and forth from my house was a mile, but before I did the halfmile back to my house I ran to East's track and did a mile there.  I think I picked a good time to run, because it wasn't too hot, and it wasn't too dark.  But when I was running my stomach hurt really bad and I think it was because I had milk with my dinner.  I didn't think it would be a problem since I waited a few hours after dinner to run, but it really hurt.  I think it hurt most right at the tops of hills starting to go down.  It hurt really bad and I wanted to stop, but I didn't.  Luckily it only hurt really bad in the lst 1/2 mile so I didn't have to stop.  But when I got home I was a little sick.  Other than my stomach hurting it was a good run.       

I had to get up and run earlier today because I had plans for later.  I started running a little before 6:30, and then I met my team at Sugarhouse Park.  I didn't do the workout with them as I needed to get back to my house.  So my run was just going to Sugarhouse, doing 2 laps on the road, and coming back.  I was very dehydrated so I had to stop for water a lot. 

Today was the start of the Wasatch Back Relay.  I had leg 8, and it was easy enough.  It was getting dark right as I needed to start so I had to wear a vest and a headlamp, but it wasn't that bad.  Then I realized that the runner I was supposed to be getting the baton from was coming up to the line, so I was a few seconds late in getting there.  In my rush, I forgot to get my watch, so I don't know what my time was. 

The relay continued today.  After we were all done with our first legs, we went to the rest station, and bought some spaghetti.  It was good, and it satisfied my hunger needs.  Then we were all trying to sleep in the car, but it was a bit tight of space.  I didn't get to sleep before it was time to do the second leg, but I think I still had a bit of energy.  The second leg i ran was 20, which is 7 miles downhill.  It was about 3am when I started, so I definately needed the vest and headlamp this time.  I've never been on a night run, so this was a neat experience for me.  It was cold though, and I was wearing a lot of clothing.  I had some tights over spandex, and I also had a tanktop, t-shirt, and a long running shirt, and some gloves.  Eventually it became a little warm for the gloves so I just took them off and carried them.  I had my watch this time, my time was about 57 minutes. 

After the 2nd leg, I was able to get some sleep.  I got a few hours, and that felt nice after not getting any.  My third leg was leg 32, 6.1 miles long with a slight uphill at the end.  I was really tired so I wasn't going very fast, and it was hot so there were lots of people doing water statinos for their teammates, and there were people sspraying us with water which felt nice.  I passed 20 people on this leg, and I was only passed by two very fast guys.  I don't think there was a 1 mile to go sign, so it was over sooner than I had expected, but that was ok.  The whole relay was fun, and Bre and me got some good pictures.  Most of all, we had a good time and I hope to do this race again next year.

I ran a total of 16.5 miles in the relay, and I think thats the most miles I've ever run within 24 hours.