Life Liberty and the Pursuit of a Shiny Gold Medal

Easy 8 with the team and strides+extra miles

Ran junkyard except Logan and I connected to blue water tank in the middle. My legs have never felt so strong and fast. I was just a little tired but running fast was so easy.

2.5

3x1mile on Cedar XC course (5min rest w/ 600m jog)

5:13 (net uphill, full 1.00)

5:05 (slight net downhill, 0.98)

4:58 (slight net downhill, 0.98)

1.25 cool down

2 after

I've hit another wall of emotional drainage and depression. It was pretty bad Sunday, but I thought I was over it. I haven't had enough water and too much sugar and I was stressed about this workout. I'm not sure why I was. Overall I feel like it hurt too much for the pace, or the pace was too slow for how much it hurt. The first rep was managable, but 2 hurt and 3 killed.

8 mile run with warm up and cool down

5x1:00 fartleks with 2 minutes off at about 5k pace

4x30sec fartleks with 1 minute off at about mile pace

Legs felt good

Ran the course for awhile. Was gonna make it 8 but only ended up doing a half mile extra. My schizophrenic depression decided to kick in, made this night pretty rough.

After last night I was doubtful about my ability to preform. Warm up was normal. I felt the usual nervous legs before. I used get stressed about that but then I realized it's just a feeling and doesn't really matter. I did some of that anxiety release bilateral app thing before and it helped a ton.

Race started and I didn't get out terribly well, but my body new what pace it was capable of holding so I was a ways back. I stayed incredibly relaxed until the gate the first time and I hit a traffic jam. I managed to get to the outside and pass a bunch of people. Most of the race passed pretty easily after that. I hit 5:08 at the mile and it felt like I was jogging. 5:22 was the next .98 (probably could've worked harder there) and then about 5:00. Kick was awesome and focusing on form helped some. Considering how things have been going that was perfect. I'm right where I want to be and I'm ready to compete for those titles.

I think that the biggest achievement this race was my metality. I've taken a completely different perspective. I've gone from comparing myself to everyone else, being completely stressed out and attempting to predict who I could and couldn't beat based on times and training to being excited for racing, excited for the competion and ready to give my best and be statisfied with what I can run. I learned again that going out conservatively with an attitude of competition rather than pressure I preform better, and I actually enjoy it. 

4 mile warm up

3 mile tempo (17:00)

3 mile cool down

Tempo started rough. I was sore and tired but things loosened up half way through mile 2. Mile splits were 5:54 5:45 5:20. Proud of how relaxed I kept things and still ran fast.

Congrats to all those marathon finishers at St George today!