Marathon training/Cross country season, days 1-17

To be fair, Marathon training started quite a while ago for me, but since it starts 8 months from today, I'll count that as day 1. I joined a track team very early this spring, my Mom didn't like how inactive I was, so she signed me up for track. I am really glad she did, ever since track has started, I have been running a lot, over the summer I joined a running club, ran 300 miles, and since have joined a cross country team. Right now, since marathon workout plans don't extend out this far, (8 months) then I don't run any set runs right now, plus I have my cross country workouts I am running, so I don't want to burn myself out too much anyway. Currently, I haven't run anything farther than 11.5 miles, and my current mileage is 30-35 miles a week. As of last week, I had my first 5k race and cross country meet, I ran expecting to get ~22:30 and I ended up crushing the time with a 20:52. With everything going as it is, I am looking forward to running more in the future!

Day 1 part 2. 9/4/2018
Cross country practice was cancelled today. No phone to track distance, so my options were limited, because the workout was supposed to be 3 sets of 400 repeats, and I don't have a nearby track. I ended up running on the treadmill, overall I ran 8.25 miles in 1 hour, 9 minutes, and 13 seconds. The post workout stretches and exercises felt great today, I was a little sore after the workout.

Day 3 9/6/2018
Yesterday was a Pre-meet run, easy running. (Ha, I ran at 8:20 pace for three miles). Today is my second cross country meet, I hope to achieve a sub 20 minute time today. Whether that will happen or not, I cannot be sure, but I will log it later today (I'll talk about it on a later day). Nerves are a factor today for sure, and will get worse as the day goes on, as the High School boys run last. Also I will definitely be chilly, High school boys don't run until 6:15, will be cold, and will be very nervous.

Day 4 9/7/2018
Final time yesterday, 21:43. After how I was feeling yesterday, I didn't sleep very well so I lightheaded and I also had a headache. I was pretty happy with my results, I doubt I could have done it if it hadn't been for my teammate Jared. He was either passing me or I was passing him, and close to the end I charged hard up the hill and pulled away from him. Close to the end of the race at the finishing kick, there was a guy creeping up on me, and I was sprinting hard. About 100m to the finish line, the other guy is about 10 feet behind me, and I look back to see how close he is, and then I bear down and give it all I got. I am still looking back when I see his face, and I see the resignation on his face when he audibly says "Nope" and he slowed down. I charged across with a 21:43, snagging 4th runner for our team. These races are what I love about running, nerves aren't so bad and it's enough to challenge me.

Day 7 9/10/2018
Day before next meet. Have to be careful with how many miles I run each week, never do more than coach prescribes, because I don't want my times to suffer from it. Ran my workout Saturday, 7.1 miles with Jared. We both run at similar speeds, so that helped, and made the run a lot more fun. 10k run for the first time this month, 51:56. Sort of slow pace, but I didn't want to push it too hard. Hopefully, even though tomorrow's meet has a huge hill and is a hard meet allegedly, I hope to run well and get a sub-21 minute 5k again.

Day 10 9/13/2018
A few hours before the Altoona meet. After the log on Monday, I ran a 5k and beat my PR, oops. Although the first mile was 5:08. Yes. 5:08. About 40 seconds faster than I thought I could. I'm hoping for it to show decent results today, although race nerves are awful today. Last meet I got 21:30, which I'm happy with, although Jared beat me this time. I hope to redeem myself today and snag 5th runner for my team today.

Day 12 9/15/2018
Altoona meet was lots of fun. 5k new PR, 20:19, plan was to run with Jared for most of the race, then breakaway during the race like I did at loyal, but the path was so narrow that I got boxed in almost immediately, and was stuck behind Michael. So I stuck with a Mcdonell kid for most of the race, he pulled up to me just after 2000 meters and we ran next to each other for almost the entire race. I caught a glimpse of Jared at about 3k, and about 3.5k I caught up to him, and was yelling at him to keep going as I passed him. I missed the 4k sign, so I thought that I had 1600 meters to go at about 400 to go. As I caught sight of the finish line, I'm like "Nope, no finishers kick today, I'm absolutely dead." As I thought this, I instantly started sprinting, I don't know how or why that happened. Finished with a time of 20:19, at the time I thought it was about 10 seconds slower. PRs all around for the team, except Anthony, Sam, and Isaiah, Anthony was sick, Sam has a crazy freshman PR, and Isaiah had a pretty crazy PR (for him) from the past year. Other than that, the runs have felt super short and slightly uneventful, most of them being 3 miles, except yesterday which was a 7 mile run in 90 degree weather, which I'll have to be careful to hydrate well today, because we all sweated like crazy yesterday. More tomorrow, after my run.

Day 17 9/20/2018
Cadott meet was on Tuesday (Today is Thursday). Did really well on Tuesday, I expected to get maybe another 20:30 at Cadott, because I didn't really hear anything about Cadott being good while Altoona was supposed to be the fastest meet of the season. I finished with a time of 19:55. I was completely shocked, I certainly didn't expect to get a time under 20. I knew after starting that if I could keep a good pace I could get a good time, first mile was around 6:08, which was the fastest first mile time I've gotten in meet, and by mile two I still felt pretty good, with a time of 12:50 at 2 miles. I was hurting a little by mile two, but I heard the time, did some quick math in my head, and I thought, "If I push this, I can certainly get a sub 20 today!". I had to focus really hard on not stomping as I ran, because that seems to jar my lungs and they already were working overtime. At about a 1k to go, I saw the back of Sam's jersey, and at that point I knew I was doing well. Around 400m to go, Garrett was there to yell at me to go, and I honestly thought I had nothing left, but I complied and started sprinting even harder. Little did I know Jared was starting to pass me just before, (one of my goals was to beat Jared) but he got cut off, and he said he didn't have the energy to come back from that. As I approached the finish line, I couldn't really see the numbers, and then all the sudden I see 19:43, and I had about 100m to go. I'm like "OH MY GOSH I CAN DO THIS!" I just put my head back, (I'm pretty sure that I lost focus for a second) and ran as hard as I could. I'd done it. I broke 20. Jared zoomed in behind me with a time of 20:02, probably one of the most frustrating times out of all of us at the meet. 6/7 of us Varsity guys PRed that day, with an exception of Sam, who has a crazy freshman PR of 18:43. Day after I did a "recovery run" 6 miles in 46:20, which was about 7:44 pace. Today I had speed training, and strides for the first time in a long time, so I opted for 40 second strides. Not fun, especially since I only gave myself a 60 second cool down in between. I've had some good running, I hope to keep running this well for a while.







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    1. Thank you! I doubt this interests many people, but I want to keep something to remember my (hopefully) earlier days of running.

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