Running From Finals

57 minutes Death Run 

Todays run was my favorite yet. It felt so good to just get out and push myself as hard as I could for our workout. I hope we do that one again sometime. One thing I enjoyed a ton was the nervousness before the workout. I'd not felt that in quite a while so that was exciting. When we started the run we were pushing rediculously fast. Our first mile was a 5 36 ,and our second was a 6. After a while we died down a bit, but overall I felt solid. I stuck with coach Logan and Jose the majority of the time. Eventually, they made a hard move and I fell off. Scottie ended up catching me and thinking I had another lap I stuck close behind him hoping to outrun him. Unfortunately, I was in last and didn't know it. I think this is a good lesson because it teaches me to never postpone making a quick move in a race. I was little frusturated with where I got out, but also pleased at the same time which is a good thing because I think that this helps me aknowledge that I pushed myself and did well but can strive for much more. Also I matched my 5k record and am SUPER pumped about that. I'm glad to be picking up where I last left off. Unfortunately, I've been getting some terrible knee pains in my left knee probably from ramping up the minutes so quickly since I wasn't around all XC season. I'm hoping to keep my minutes a little lower than everyone else for at least a short period of time so I don't screw myself up again. Thats my main worry about this year. I just am hoping to have one season where I'm injury free. I'm going to try and work toward this by taking some serious time to stretch and ice. Today I spent nearly an hour doing that. Overall today was a great challenge. I'm happy where I ended up at ,but I definately won't settle. I want to be able to do more and stick with the very top guys all the time. This will take some commintment not only in workouts but also stretching and recovery. It'll be hard but I know it's worth it. I can't wait for tomorrow this time my goal is to not postpone a chance to move up whenever it comes. 

53 minutes 

The 6 Minute Test 1800m

One Good Thing: I was always on the attack going after somebody rather than trying to avoid being passed. I didn't get passed once and almost caught Nathan while pushing forward. 

One Negative Thing: I could've kicked a little earlier and still think I could've gone faster. I wish I'd placed maybe one spot ahead of where I did. 

I'm finally going back to reflect on friday's race. I have some mixed feelings about the race , just like the thursdays death run. The good side of things is that during this race I met my goal of not procrastinating pushing up to the next group, I moved up one spot from the day before, I'm not hurting horribly, and I was ten seconds off a PR even after Thursdays competition. The bad thing about my run is I would have liked to still place higher, maybe up by Mikey and Alex, but I think that is a good thing because it means I have definable goals that are attainable. I was only a good 40 meters behind Nathan and maybe 60-70 meters behind Mikey and Alex which makes me happy cause I know I have the ability to stick with those guys still. Looking at that, I am really picking up where I left off which I am happy about ,but I am going to keep pushing for more. I am trying to make sure I am never just comfortable where I am resulting in settling. One of my favorite things about this race is that I was never comfortable sitting where I was and just avoiding getting passed. I really focused in on who was ahead of me and tried to go after them. It was such an awesome feeling. I couldn't believe how much better I did really focusing in on that. Another thing that really helped me was at my hardest moment during the race I thought to myself that I could choose an easy out and hurt myself in the long run or I could choose the harder decision and end up better off overall. This helped me keep pushing through. Overall, I was fairly happy with the race. 

75 minutes 

Fun run, but I'm feeling really frustrated. I've been feeling the same pain I was feeling when my injury was starting to happen last season in my left leg rather than my right leg this past week. I think it's from being to ambitious with the minutes. I tried ramping up fairly quickly. I might consider cross training the next two or so days instead of just running which unfortunately probably means pool running for me. We'll see how it goes though I'm going to talk to coach tomorrowz

45 minute pool run 

Today felt good it was nice to get off of the legs. I'm glad I'm getting ontop of pains early rather than waiting. I'm thinking I'll probably take at least till Friday to get back to running with the team. The pool run was solid. I made sure to keep my intensity up and push myself a bit.

60 minutes of pool run

I tried to push it today. After about 10 minutes of regular effort, I picked up a bit and went as a hard as I could. At first, I only went for about two or so minutes with 30 second breaks, but by the end I was going 5 minutes as hard as I could and 5 minutes at normal effort. I did about 4 sets of the 5 minute intervals. It was good, I felt like I was able to push it some even with it being a pool run. 

50 minutes 

Not sure how to feel about to day. The run was awesome and I enjoyed it a lot. It's always nice being out with the team, and I love just getting to get out and push myself a bit, but I'm still nervous about my leg at the moment. I'm definitely still feeling some pains and am trying to modify how i run in order to continue having this problem. I'm thinking that I may be on my toes a little too much, I really don't know though I need to look into my form some more though. I think it could be part of the problem. I'm not totally sure if I'll do the full run tomorrow or not. I'm kind of at a loss with what to do. It's frustrating being so nervous to run, but also feeling the need to do so. Sometimes my pains dull out over time and fade away, but I've had several similar pains that have pushed me to start limping and that has frustrated me big time. Hopefully, I'll be able to tell what I need to do in the morning by kind of Gaging how I feel.

30 minutes

Today was frusturating. I decided to try running and had to stop midway through the workout because I started limp every time my left leg came down. I've been so frusturated that I could mess myself up this many times so easily. It has made me feel kind of useless this past year when it has come to track and cross country just becaue I haven't felt like I've really been able to contribute to the team or participate much. Although things have been extremely challenging injury wise, I think its also given me a chance to improve my patience. It has been really difficuly, but I'm still not ready to give up. I am going to keep stretching and icing. At this point it may be good to go visit the physical trainer during practice as well, so I'll likely do that tomorrow. I've started limping a bit again so hopefully I'll be able to get rid of that fairly quickly.