Thatcher's Running Blog

My heel was feeling better, so I ran today. I didn't do too much though. I just ran 40 minutes with Blake. My heel hurt a little bit, but not much. We finished pretty strong, and it felt good.

Today we did four mile repeats. My heel was feeling pretty good, and I can hardly feel it now. It was really windy, so that may have slowed down the times. My splits were 4:59, 4:58, 4:58, and 5:04. My times were good, especially considering the wind, but I didn't feel good, and I didn't do great relative to the other guys. On my first one, I was in the middle of the pack, and I didn't push it too hard. On the second one, I was in about the same position. I was about the same on the third one. The fourth one was the worst. I tried to stay with the other guys, but didn't. My arms tightened up in the cold, and I couldn't move any faster. I was close to them with four hundred to go, but the last four hundred was really slow. At 1200, I was a second or two ahead of where I had been on he others. It was an okay workout, but I should have been closer to the other guys. I am improving, and it was good considering how I felt.

I didn't really run today. My heel was hurting, and I didn't really have time. I went to the high school state meet and watched. I ran around some, and warmed up and cooled down with the skyline team. It was fun to watch and there were some really great performances.

Today we did a five mile tempo run. After watching some of the races yesterday, I was pumped up and wanted to see how much I really had. I decided to push it hard and try to stay with the top group for as long as I could. We started out by warming up 2.5 miles. I was feeling pretty good, but not great. It didn't matter though, because I've realized I don't have to feel great to have a good workout. 

We started out and it didn't feel very fast. I tried to stay with the top pack, and I was able to. We came through the mile in 5:08. I was feeling pretty good, but it got harder as we went on. I came through the two mile in 10:02, so I ran a 4:54. I managed to stay pretty close to the top pack, but by 2.5 I started falling back. I came through three miles in a p.r. though, I was at 14:53 or 14:57, I can't remember. So that puts my third mile at about 4:51 or 4:55. After this I dropped back more. I could tell I was hurting from going out that fast. I came through four miles at about 20:15, so that mile was about 5:18-5:22. On my last mile, I pushed it a little harder, and finished at 25:27, so a 5:05 average for the five mile tempo run. I had more to give in the last mile, but I didn't push it too hard. This was one of my best workouts ever, even though I could have run it much smarter. I decided to push myself harder than ever before, and see how it played out. If I had stopped at 5k, I would have beat my best time by over thirty seconds. This helps me know how much I've improved, and I feel that I could have taken run at least a 15:20 if I had pushed it even harder to end at 5k.

We cooled down 2.5 miles, and I feel pretty good, but my calfs are sore.

The run started out with a bunch of people, but we ended up with me, Trevor, Neal, and Brandon. We went out pretty easy, but hit a couple sub 6:20 miles going back. The overall pace was in the 6:30's

So today I was going to get up around six, and go running before a 5k my parents were running in. After that, I was going to run with my mom and pace her to break 21:00. I was really tired, so I didn't get up at six, and I only had time for 4.5 miles before the 5k. I ran those at about 7:00 pace. After that I ran with my mom. The first mile was 7:07, the second was about 6:54, and the third was around 6:35. Her time was about 20:57. After that, I added 3.5 miles at a 7:00 pace. I was planning on doing fifteen miles total, but my calfs and shins were really sore, and my heel hurt some.