Endurance Boost

Guess who's back?

Anyway, I'm still not back to my former fitness before I got injured and my weak knees have been giving me some trouble. Start out slow, right? I'm just doing twenty miles this week.

No more running for me this week. Granted, I should really just keep running, but the truth is I'm a little scared of doing something stupid and returning to 'out of commission.' I'm done being injured, so I'm not pushing it super hard yet. Soon, soon.

Longest run I've done since I've got injured! A little sad to think about, a rinky dinky eight miler when last summer twelve mile days felt like the norm. Nevertheless, it about killed me. It mostly felt fine during the run, but when I was done I wasn't seeing quite straight. But anyway, Coach Tolbert had me talk to the head trainer at my school and he gave me some exercises to do for my weak little hips and weak little knees. Hopefully they'll toughen up soon.

Ran down to Fairmont Park and did strides.

Knees nice and sore. Those exercises the head trainer gave me seem to be working.

Mile warmup, mile speed changes, mile cooldown. We're good!

(Laughing sheepishly) Yeah, only two today.

I was nervous to race today, because as I've been coming back I haven't been able to settle into my normal, relaxed stride due to my knees being about as tough as noodles. I loaded up on IB Profin the day before, and told myself to just run and act as if my knees didn't hurt.

Still, a little nervous. Thinking there was a reason Bill put me in the slowest heat today.

But anyway, the knees felt fine! Fantastic, actually. For the first time since XC Regions, I was able to settle into my stride! Felt phenomenal! Anyway, swept the girl in third and was beaten by none other than East's Sarah Sargent! She got fast. That's what I get for being an idiot and running in too old shoes.

I need to work harder. One heckuva lot harder. 6:10 is a fine time for many people. But that's too slow for me.

Just ran by myself today, because we didn't have school. I woke up 'early' to get my run in, and it was very wet and cold and I think I got a new blister on my achilles. Almost got hit by a truck and snowplows drenched me in snow twice. Party.

Then when I got home my brain staged a protest in the form of a migraine and I started throwing up. Had to stay in bed all afternoon. Good golly.

Well, let's get this over with.

We went down to liberty park today to do six 800s. Ironic though it is, I felt fantastic during the warmup. ALmost like my old self. Annnddd then I had to drop out after three, because I felt like I was about to keel over. (I would rather not share my times on those, because they were very embarassing.) Not going to lie, the minute I got home I wanted to blubber.

I don't think you'll want to hear excuses, but I'm going to give them anyway to reassure myself more than anyone. I haven't been getting much sleep recently, and I'm super stressed out because this is the last week of the quarter. I didn't eat much today(I usually don't eat when I'm stressed, not sure why-sure doesn't help anything). And I'm still exhausted from my innard's little adventure yesterday.

Got back, and Bill reminded us that we should have done an hour and ten minutes running. ...Might've done a little less time than that...

But anyway, today felt pretty awesome! It was one of those times when going slow hurt more than going fast. When I was going quick, it almost felt like I had my old legs back! (Stay with me, legs!)

Also, I feel like it's my duty as an American to say a word about the Congress Bill everyone's freaking out about. Censoring parts of the internet, huh? Sounds very much like Communist China.

Ponder that for a while.

Hehe. 2 more miles to do this week...Maybe not thirty this week, then. I have a race on Saturday, and I am most definitely NOT doing another two mile day race. Felt that waaay too much on Sunday and Monday.

Anyway, we went to Sugarhouse Park to do fartlek around the large loop. Ons (minutes) 5-4-3-2-1. Recovery: 3-3-3-2-1. Made it around the loop twice and ran back to the school.

Peeling of my sock today, it became apparent my third toe decided to attack my second one. Yeah, both were covered in blood. Might be time to trim my toenails. Icky.   

Race tomorrow

Fun race. Apparently my arms are completely atrocious. Makes me a smidget self concious. They had about fifteen heats of 200 guys before my race, so I probably did like two miles worth of strides. What a party.

It feels good to race again.

Happy Birthday to Natalie! We got to run 1000s! At the oval! Yipee!

Not sure when I got so tired, but it was ok. I'm very stiff, but I do hope my arms are coming back to form. No more wrist-dropping for me.

Anyway, I hit didn't hit the times I was supposed to at 4:05-10 for the 5 1000s. Not a one. I'm not sure what's wrong and I'm a wee bit discouraged about it.

Today was a psuedo-recovery day. I say 'psuedo' because it sure as heck didn't feel like a recovery day. Pretty stiff and pretty painful. It hurt a lot more than it should have. But Bill told me it's better to get the miles and pain in now before outdoor starts, and he's got a point. I'd rather be dealing with it now than two weeks before regions. One mile at a time.

Just a little run by myself today. Had an ortho appointment. I got passed by two girls running on the street. This is arrogant, but it felt weird to be getting passed by people I don't know. What's with this? Am I going backwards or forwards?

Did two events today, the 1600 and the 800. The 800 felt a lot better than the 1600, but that might have been just because I got first in my heat in the 800. =)

1600=....6:09 =(

800=2:44

Meh.

We're getting there.

Speed workout today. Drove to the oval right after school (thank goodness-actually got home at six!) and did a timed mile and 10 200s. Timed mile: 7:12 ish...can't quite remember. A little ashamed about that, but one mile at a time. The first five or so 200s were a little disappointing too: 55, 52, 54, 56(!), 52...but then something amazing happened! Homeostasis! Then my times fell: 48, 46, 44, 42, 42. Finished with about a mile and a half cooldown and felt fine.

Does anyone know if it's bad to take an ice bath two days in a row? Took one last night, and I kind of want to take one tonight, but is that going to hurt me?

What a lovely day. Three miles warmup for me (Tomy, Chris, Natalie, and Bill did four) and after that a mile of speed changes. Jogged a few laps, 3/4 of a mile. Did two sets of three 300s rather than the tempo run I'd been dreading all day (yay!) with an 800 recovery in between sets. Harder than I thought it would be. Knees stiff but not painful. Ended with enough cooldown to give me eight for the day.

"How was practice?"

"Terrible."

"Surely it wasn't"-

-"It was. It was appalling."

Bonus points to whoever knows what that's from.

Warmup

1 1000

2 800s

4 400s

Cooldown.

I think I'm getting sick.

Yep, definitly sick. Blergh.

Felt good today, for the first time this week!

Four warmup, race, cooldown later.

Fun race. Felt awful the first mile, ok for about three, and phenomal the last two! Apparently I need to run about eight miles before I start feeling good.

400s-         200s-

1:36           48 

1:37           48

1:37           47

1:34           48

1:26           46

1:20           42

Again. Need at least 5 miles warmup for thursday to do well, it looks like.

Fun run! Ran with Abigail.

PRed by one second!!!

Ran at Sugarhouse. Feeling a little out of shape, but that should come with the miles. Six miles. I'll probably run later tonight.

Fartlek today at Wheeler Farm. Very, very out of shape.

HOT day.

Went to Cottonwood Complex today.

Today was the first ten miler I've done in a long time, so I'm pretty tired! I'm really sore. Apart from that, everything went really well. Although admittedly with witnessing some serious cameltoe at the beginning (watch out for that people).

AM: 7 around the cemetary.

PM: 3 with Amanda

Lovely run on Pipeline. Could have done with fewer stops and starts though...

Bill told me to run this as an LSD ;) run, so I didn't warm up much or anything. The race went a lot better than I thought it would. I naturally felt crummy from until about mile three, from not warming up. But then from about mile three to mile eleven, I felt absolutely fantastic! I crashed a bit after that, but I still got my goal, which was to get under two hours. Not bad for so few miles I've done, I think.

Haven't blogged in a while...I'm going to be a dedicated blogger from now on!

Today we ran up to JCC. My hip has been bothering me in the old place I injured it last spring, so I slacked off and didn't go the full way. Sarah S. and I wound up a little bit lost and accidently ran into a hospital...that wasn't right, I don't think.

Had a chemistry lab today at the U. Total party. I didn't have much time to run today, so four was all I could squeeze out. I should probably start running in the mornings on my chemistry lab days.

Today proved to me how much I've let myself slide the past couple weeks. We ran 2 200s, a 400, then a mile tempo, than an 800, and then 4 400s. Got a couple laps of recovery in between those. For the 200s, I got about 42ish for each. The 400 was 1:36. I got the mile in 7:15, and the 400s 1:36, 1:34, 1:35, 1:32.

I gave up today. My hip had been hurting a lot and I was limping during the run. I decided to turn back early because I was scared I'd injure myself again. I'm a little disappointed and I should have run more, because I probably just didn't let it warm up properly.

I need to be more consistant with my core.

Today we did 400s. Bill gave us a split to hit. Mine was 82 seconds. He said if we hit our split we would only have to do two. On the first one, I got 76, which was too fast so it didn't count. The next one I got an 81, which was fine, and then on the last one I got an 83. Fun workout. Real fun.

This race was cold! It was kind of funny, because while I managed to warm up my body fine, my quads stayed really really cold the entire time. I felt like I was waddling throughout the race. I had to rush and run a cooldown, so my mileage for today is a little low.

Ran with my dad today =)

So today I apparently took an incredibly long time to change into running clothes today, because the team left without me. So I went and ran the city creek route. Big ball of fun.

Had to do 6 800s in the dark at liberty park by myself. I'm glad I'm still alive.

Did about a mile warmup, 8 funky running+exercises+stairs laps, then the VA loop with a lap in cememtary and back on thirteenth.

Had to run by myself because of an orthodontist appointment.

We ran up to the track to do speed changes, but it was too snowy so we did a gaurdsman loop on and off 30 seconds.

Ran to liberty and I did a 2 mile and a 1 mile.

Chem lab today...Big ball of titrated fun. =p

Went to an APUSH seminar and went to highlands track and did the 5X1000 workout a missed yesterday. It was pretty good, actually.

Ran up to the track today and did a 200, 400, 400, 200, 200, 400, 400, 200 workout. Felt fine.

I'm going to be religious about my core from now on. I've missed the past few days.

Speed Workout today. I was a little bit lethargic.