Our newest blogger is Will Janakis formerly of Marshwood and presently a junior at Thomas College. Janakis fnished 15th in the North Atlantic conference championship last year running 29:02. Follow Will in his junior xc season for Thomas College.
Thomas College can officially put “Hosted a cross country race” on its resume. After 119 years, we finally hosted our first ever cross country race on Saturday. The week leading up to it was a bit hectic; it started with me attempting to draw a course map Monday morning, which only took about 14 tries to produce something legible and error free. Then Tuesday I had to go out with our Assistant Coach, Mark St.Vincent, and wheel the whole thing. We went back out Thursday and ran the course a few times to make sure we had tangents right. The coaches had to get there early Saturday to mark the whole thing (as the excessive rain Friday pushed them back a day). It was funny because Coach Smart was so worried about someone getting lost that for the first mile she had an arrow spray painted every 10ft. Mark finally told her a blind person couldn’t get lost the way she was doing it. Over all, we think the meet was a success; everyone seemed to like the course—or at least not hate it! (The joy on the faces of the Colby Sawyer girls’ team after winning the first place prize of whoopee pies tells me they will probably be back.)
My season kept going the way I wanted it to. I placed 11th beating a lot of people for the first time this year and closing the gap on a lot more. My time was 18:23 but with the hills and mud it’s tough to judge performance this week on time. I felt the best I have all year. I ran the first mile pretty strong, and the second mile I felt great and surged, managing to pass a handful of guys in the last mile. I was real on and off during the final mile (because it has a lot of steep, rolling hills). I kept going from feeling real good to terrible. My throat also dried up again; I know I had plenty to drink… anyone have advice on that?
Here’s this week’s training log.
Monday - five mile repeats: 5:37 5:34 5:31 5:31 5:26. One lap recovery; felt good overall; pretty strong wind on the back straightaway.
Tuesday - 7.2 miles easy at Quarry Road.
Wednesday - 6.5 on the road; 6 long strides after.
Thursday - ran the Quarry Road course twice for a total of 6 miles.
Friday - ran 4 in the rain and went for a swim!
Saturday - ran 11 miles including the race in 18:23
Sunday - 10 miles easy; long run.
We only did one workout this week because the mile repeat week always seems to be killer, so we planned ahead this time. All the running at Quarry Road is pretty much a hill workout in itself. The Thomas team will be back in action next week at the USM invite.
