Week of: September 8th – September 14th
Training
Monday: warm up, 2 miles, cool down
Tuesday: 6 miles on roads, a little speed work
Wednesday: meet @ home then 8 minute speed workout on course
Thursday: 4.5 miles on roads
Friday: meet @ EL
Saturday: core workouts
Sunday: 3 miles easy on road
Training was strange since our meet was rescheduled for Wednesday and we had another one Friday. I'm getting back into the swing of things but I think I need to start increasing my mileage. I've been stretching a lot more: in the morning, at practice, and before I go to bed. It's been helping a lot more with keeping me injury free. I'm glad I don't have shin splints this year. I had them awhile ago and it seemed like they would never go away. I'm feeling pretty good now, though. My goal for the end of the season is to have good abs (not my cross country goal obviously, just one of my training goals). I'm still missing having someone in front of me to train with. I can push myself, but only to a certain extent without having anyone to chase, or run side by side with. On Tuesday some of us ran to Hannaford's and we always get the cookies they set out for “children 13 and under”. This time they had tortellini samples, and chocolate covered pretzels too, so basically we ate everything. I ended up eating 5 cookies on the remainder of the run.
HOME MEET:
We had two meets in three days this week. The home meet was my favorite out of the two. Since we had a meet Friday we decided to take the home meet as more of a hard practice. Our plan was to experiment pack running for the first 2 miles, and then we agreed that after that we could all go out however we wanted to . For me, my pack was Shelby Aseltine, Gwen Beacham, and Addie Cullenberg. We started out medium and went through the 2 mile around 15:10 I believe. It was so much fun! I never get to pack run with anyone, and it made us feel so strong and intimidating. We were cheering for each other to “keep it up”, and joking around and laughing while sinking in the zillions of mud puddles. It felt great starting out at that pace, I really enjoyed it. It's so fun to run with your teammates. We were sticking strong, and encouraging each other to keep it up. There was a girl from Messalonskee that stayed with us for awhile though, she was pretty good. Through the woods we could hear everyone from our team talking, and it was so fun I can't even explain. I haven't done anything like that in a race since freshman year, and I miss it. Once we got to the second mile Shelby was right near me and she said “Melody, you know you can go now, right?”. So I was like “Really? Oh, okay!”. It was weird and funny.. and for some reason I just bolted off, as if I had been waiting to start the race at the 2 mile. I knew I was going fast on that last mile, and it felt amazing, it really did. It was almost refreshing. It wasn't hot, and it wasn't cold, it was perfect. I finished in 22:39, which put Silver's CR away by 20 seconds which made me happy. It wasn't any sub 21 or anything but with the given course, race plan, and competition, I was pretty happy with it, especially since our team swept 1-5 and got the perfect score. Shelby took 2nd, then Gwen, Addie, and I think Hannah.
EL MEET:
Friday was a different story, you could probably guess. The meet at EL was expected to be fast, and the competition was there for me to have. While walking the course we took a wrong turn, and then the coaches had to explain the right way to go. As usual, I had no idea where the hell I was going. Coach went over it with me step by step (first loop you do this, second you do this), but come race time I just ended up asking these random kids from Leavitt, “excuse me, which way do I go now?”. Luckily they were there every time, and knew where to go. Abby Mace took the lead immediately and close behind was me, Taylor Burr, and two girls from EL. I had/ have no idea who the girls from EL were, but I was like, wait a minute.. if I don't know who these girls are, shouldn't I be ahead of them!? Well one of them was going super fast, and I figured if I didn't get ahead before we turn then I would get set back, so I took a little surge to pass them and go into 2nd. When we got to the first turn we were supposed to go right, but Abby went left, and ran the wrong way for about 50 meters, then someone yelled “ABBY, WRONG WAY!”, so she goes “WHAT?”, and turned around and quickly put herself right back into position (in front of me), which I thought was really amazing that she could do that, and still be in the race mentally. I could see Abby for most of the race, and I could see Taylor around the turns (she was in 3rd). I really did try so hard to keep Abby in sight, but when it came to the “into the field” turns, I was more worried about going the right way. Somewhere around the 2 mile I lost sight of her though. I could get a few glimpses once in awhile around the big field, but she was flying, so I just kept running my race. I got a stitch on my right side, which literally never happens to me in races, and it was weird, and didn't feel good. I tried to slow my breathing down. I ended up finishing 2nd in a 20:46(?), with Abby coming in at 19:35(?). It's just ridiculous. I wasn't happy with myself for being that far behind. Everyone was telling me that I did good and stuff, but what I don't think that anyone understands is that I don't like settling for good. I understand that it's a good time for me, but I was so pissed at myself. It's more like self-disappointment thinking that I tried so damn hard to keep pace, and keep going, but as hard as I tried it wasn't good enough. It's what I often feel. I don't want to do good, I want to do great. I just think it's hard for people to understand why I get mad about things like that. So it went Abby(19:35), me(20:46), then Taylor(21:xx). Our girls team ended up winning though, which was amazing. I just want people to see where we are, which they clearly haven't based on the poll. We believe in ourselves, but it doesn't seem like anyone else does. We have a meet at Leavitt on Friday.
I don't have anything else to talk about, except that we got a new cheer. It's this really cool African-chant type song. You'll have to hear it sometime. Also everyone should take a few minutes to vote on the athlete/fan poll.