You've got to want it to win it

This morning I went up to campus and ran up the road by Red Butte to the gate and back down to the lockerroom to get 3 miles before meeting up with Macee, Alex, and Andrea to go for an easy run.  Macee and I were doing 60 minutes and Alex and Andrea were doing 30 so they ran with us for the first bit.  We ran through the Avenues to get to 11th Ave., that's about where Alex and Andrea turned, and Macee and I ran on 11th Ave. all the way down until right before it turns to go up City Creek.  We stopped to stretch for a bit before running back, the way back felt so good and very nice for recovery after Saturday.  When I got home I took an ice bath for 15 minutes.

This morning we did our hour of weights.  We did a lot of the same stuff we've been doing the past few times, though this time on the bar the freshmen got to do a little more than what we've been doing! We've definitely been getting better and I feel that working in the weight room has really strengthened my core. 

This afternoon we did a hills workout.  For warmup we ran up to the road by Red Butte and then to get a little more we ran on part of the Drycreek trail to a tree and then turned and went back to the road and up to the yellow gate.  Then we did our drills and strides and changed shoes.  Then Kep explained the workout to us.  He had placed cones at the 200, 400, 500, and 600 meter marks so that we could judge about how far we got each time that we ran up the road for 2 minutes.  We started in small groups but it ended up being a small group and then a large group.  I got to about the same spot each time.  We did it 4 times, and for recovery on each we ran back down to the start.  After 4 then we ran over to the tree we had turned around at earlier and then in groups of 2 we ran up the hill for 1 minute and then walked partway down and jogged partway down.  I was with Andrea.  We did 4 sets of that as well.  When we were all finished with that we changed shoes back and then ran cooldown.  I ran that with Hilary, Alyssa, and Bekah since they were going longer.  I did the last mile and a half by myself to get up to 10.  

Today for workout we had a recovery run in the afternoon.  We were supposed to do whatever we needed.  Since we started at 2:15 and had a meeting at 3:45 I didn't have time to get in all 10 miles that I needed :(  But with Hilary I ran along Foothill over to 1700s, and then down to 2100e and over to 900s and into Bonneville Glen.  We did a lap there and then ran back to campus along Guardsman.  We went to the field below the track where Hilary did strides, but I kept running to try and get in as much as I could before the meeting.  I ran out to the road just north of campus and then went up above the track and then back down the way I had come, and ended up just finishing with 8 and a half so I could grab my stuff and get to the meeting.  

This morning we had lifting.  We got to a little bit less today since many of us are racing Saturday.  

For the afternoon workout we took Trax to 900e and then ran to Liberty Park for warmup.  We did our strides and drills and then changed shoes.  The workout was a Kenyan run.  It was a 4 mile tempo where we'd pick up the pace by 20 seconds each mile, gradually throughout the whole mile.  I was with Hilary, Bekah, and Lauren.  Our starting pace was 6:50.  We had two full laps and then 2/3 of a lap to get to 4 miles.  The splits I got were 6:55, 6:28, 6:13, 6:00.  Then we jogged back to our shoes to change them and then I went with the group that was going longer for cooldown. 

Today we had an easy day to recover from yesterday and taper for tomorrow.  We went out on Foothill and turned around as we needed.  I ran with Hilary out 15 minutes, which got us just past 1300s.  When we got back to campus we did strides on the field with the softball pitches in it.  We did ours barefoot and we did 6.  Then we did about a quarter mile barefoot cooldown to get to 5 for the day.

This morning I ran an easy 2 miles out to 1700s and back.  I got my mom to run a block with me going each direction, she had just started walking before I began my run.  Afterwards she took me to get a bagel :)  Now its off to Reno for the race tonight!

Tonight after arriving at the race course we had a little while to get settled and ready before we began to warmup.  About 45 minutes before our race we went for a team warmup.  We did a few laps in the baseball fields where we were set up and then we went and ran part of the loop on the course.  Then we returned to the baseball diamonds to do our drills and strides.  Then we went and changed shoes.  I got about 2.5 miles warmup including the strides we did on the line.  We circled up and did our team prayer and cheer, and then we got on the line.  When the race started I got right up to the front and ran next to Alyssa and we led the pack for the first little loop.  Since we were running under the lights, it made it so that just after passing each set of lights we could see the shadows of the girls behind us, which was useful every lap in figuring out where the other runners were.  Going into the second loop Alyssa picked it up and broke away, and Bekah went with her.  Then going up the hill I got passed back and forth by Lucy and two of the UNLV girls, who were also wearing red so from the corner of my eye it was hard to tell who was who.  Getting to the downhill portion I was able to pass them back, but then on the next lap which was a bigger lap a UNR girl passed me on the uphill.  At that point I knew that when I passed back on the downhill I was going to have to go hard since it was the last lap and once we were off the little mountain it wasn't that far to the finish.  I was able to breakaway from them and I pushed all the way over around the field and then kicked it in down the final straightaway not too far behind Bekah.  When I was leaving the finish chute I turned and saw that Hilary had finished 4th!  A few places back, Lauren finished 10th bringing our final team score to 20, earning our team first place and winning an engraved plate for it :)  Afterwards we started to cooldown in the baseball diamonds, and Kate, Lauren, and I decided to get our iPods and then we ended up going out on the road for a bit so we wouldn't get bored going in circles.  We ended up with 3 miles total for cooldown.