Week of: September 1st – September 7th
Training
Monday: Home from Boston around 5:30-6:00 (off)
Tuesday: 7.5 miles on roads
Wednesday: 400 repeats on course
Thursday: 600 repeats on course
Friday: easy running on course
Saturday: Meet @ Great Glen NH (3.1 mile)
Sunday: core workouts
Training this week felt weird to me. I've been tired for a long time. My legs are tight, I have a tonsil infection, and I don't get nearly enough sleep as I should. The workouts were good though. I got lots of speed work in, and my mileage has been quite well for me. I'm not sure why I've just been feeling out of it lately. I'm not sick of running, but I just feel kind of exhausted in general. It's not affecting my running though, that's not what I'm trying to say. I've gotten solid workouts in. So far my races have been going very well, and I expect that they'll just keep getting better as my season progresses.
Yesterday we had the Great Glen meet in New Hampshire. I always like it there because the trails are amazing: tightly packed dirt and very nice scenery throughout the race. There were 5 races total: JV boys, JV girls, varsity boys, varsity girls, and then a coaches & 'whoever else(?) wants to run' race. The JV races had the perfect weather- not sunny and kind of cooled off. Then once we got towards the varsity races it heated up and by time our race came around it was somewhere around 450 degrees (give or take). The trails are mostly shaded in the woods, but there are sections where the sun got to you, and the last 400-600m is all open, so the finishing kick was my least favorite part. I knew I wanted to start out fast for this race- New Hampshire has absolutely amazing runners. The start was an uphill so I just kind of flew up it. I had a good pace for the first mile (6:39), and was trying to keep my eyes on certain people to “tie an imaginary rope around them” as coach says. I found that the girls there were extremely different in racing. I'm not sure what it was, but it was a nice change to see other areas racing styles. These girls were fantastic on all of the hills (trust me this course was up and down). Normally I'll see (in my races) girls slowing down up up the hills, or sprinting up them and then slowing down at the top, but these people were tanks and their paces were phenomenal. It was a good challenge. My second mile was around 13:XX something. Then I finished in a 21:25 in 13th 14th or 15th (I really have no idea still) and got a medal for being top 25 which I was happy about. Last year Silver ran 21:20. A few of our girls tried pack running this time and it turns out it works very well. I didn't know if they would be able to since they are usually more spread out in races, but watching the finish they clearly stepped it up and they all had ridiculous finishes which was awesome to see. Addie (Cullenberg) got a medal too for being the 5th(?) freshman in the varsity race. It was such a nice race for us because we had no pressure since we don't live there and nobody expects anything from us, so we could experiment and take chances to see what kind of racing strategy works for us. The race was challenging for me for a lot of reasons. It was hot, there were a zillion super fast people, and hills are not my favorite. I liked the competition though. Georgia Griffin isn't racing for Hanover anymore but their team was still ridiculous. I was tired, but in the last half when I got passed by this blue girl (not sure what team), she kept saying “come on, stick with me, let's go” and it actually really helped to hear that, and I did just that, and ended up passing her at the end.
The energy gel stuff was SO gross. I don't suggest it to ANYONE... EVER. I tasted a little and it was like melted, old, nasty.... candy, mixed with, a bad flavor of old warm capri suns. I hated it, so I shared it with the team. I think there was only one guy that said it “wasn't that bad”. Maybe a different flavor would be nice. Steer clear of “lemon sublime'” though. You might already know but Kelton's out for a little bit because he had apendicidis. Luckily they got it in and early stage so it's not as bad as possible, so he didn't have to have a full blown surgery, just a few small incisions. It's been weird not having him at practice or at the meet though. We have our 3 other captains around (me, Hannah West, and Adam Fissette) but usually Kelton leads most things on the team. It's just kind of tragic though that he's in the best shape of his life and now it's at an abrupt stop. He'll be back though. It's just weird though because he's the person at the meets that's always positive for me since I'm so negative. Long blog....eek.