I'll skip the essays about my season. Well maybe I'll leave one in there. Enjoy!
3/28/08- My favorite home run feeling pretty good. Medium CJ trail almost to River Road.
Miles: 8.5
3/29/08- Eichenlaub grassy up Virginia, picked up tempo from Virginia to Los Robles and then pushed hard back, accelerating to 5 min/mile pace by the end. Feeling good, except for a bit of Achilles/Plantar to work on.
Miles: 7.5
3/30/08- NFTC with Kangway, Mark. 25 minutes medium, 5 min cool down. Lifted afterwards. Feeling stronger, but it was still disturbing how surprisingly not easy that 25 minutes was.
Miles: 4
Weekly Miles: 25
3/31/08- Feeling better today. Medium-hard Arroyo to casting pond. Kept 7:30 pace (at times less) the whole way. Going to be a bit tired tomorrow though!
Miles: 8.7
4/1/08- 10x400 going every 2 min at 5k pace. Did a 2 mile warm-up. Then went 90,89,91,90,89,87,88,87,88, 87,86, bonus in 72. Felt good and relaxed the whole way, a great workout for the first hard workout in 2 weeks, and track workout in 3. I think I could have gone faster for the workout. Lacy fountain and back cool down.
Miles: 7
4/2/08- Huntington medium easy. Legs a bit tired but feeling otherwise fine. High mileage for track (47 miles in the past 7 days)
Miles: 7
4/3/08- Had 4 p.m. class so went at 12:30 instead. I went Lacy long was as a warm-up, but cramped up very badly after only ½ a mile. I tried to relax a bit at Lacy but I couldn’t shake a lingering feeling that I would throw up. Jogged back easy.
Miles: 4.6
4/4/08- Easy Pre-race. Stomach still feeling out of it, cramped up again.
Miles: 4.2
4/5/08- Skipped out of the race due to orchestra concert, lingering concerns about stomach. I later found out the a stomach flu was going around campus. Later that evening after the concert Dennis, Chief, who was upset about his race and wanted to run more, and I drove to the Rose Bowl for a midnight interval workout. We parked at the closest residential street south ran to Lot K and did ~1000,700,500,300 at 1500m race pace with Dennis and Chief pacing me. First 1k in about 3:30-3:35 uphill. 700 in 2:40 again uphill, 500 in 90 rolling, 300 in about 48 slightly downhill (Lot K sign to Savlia Canyon Road, Salvia Canyon to service building, service building to N. bridge and N bridge to dirt path form perfect intervals. A great workout and feeling good. Afterwards we got In N Out and Dennis told us he is enrolled again! Good times.
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1765272
Miles: 7
4/6/08-I was planning on attending NTFC but was busy doing math homework.
Weekly miles: 39 (Between Thursday to Thursday 48)
4/7/08- Medium Lower Arroyo. Foot bothering me in old injury area. I am a bit worried about this, although it seems to have not gotten too much worse since the run. Tomorrow morning will tell if anything serious has happened. At least for tomorrow, I may have to scale down the track workout.
Miles: 8
I stopped recording around here. My computer bit the dust hard the next day. I was able to save a lot of data files, including the log, but the rest was trashed. It took a while to figure out the problem and to get everything back up and running again. I’ll fill in what I remember. Because of my foot I remember taking this week a bit down. I ran the whole week with a metatarsal pad on my foot. Maybe a total weekly mileage around 30.
Sat- Multi-duals at Redlands 1500m in 5:00. Very hot, breezy. It must have been 95 degrees or so and very bright sunlight. Strangely enough, there was still a good deal of visible snow up in the San Bernadinos. We got to Redlands around 1:30 p.m. and sat in the heat for 3 hours. Warm-up around campus, foot feeling okay, dipped my head in the steeple pit 5 min before the race. There were several people entered at very similar times to me so I took the race out in an easy 80 while I was immediately dropped by the pack. At this point I noticed some guy was sitting right behind me. Ian kept telling me to listen for him. I was very constant with the pace and about 300 to go the guy made a big move. I shifted gears but the guy still blew right by me. Almost threw up at the end. Long cool down with Chief afterwards, ran through the big campus fountain. Chief PRed in the 5k in 16:59.76.
Weekly Miles: ~30
This next week I decided to put in one last hard week of very solid effort.
Mon- Medium hard Lower Arroyo. Stayed with the whole team until half way down California. Still hot but pushed hard and kept up.
Miles: ~8
Tues- 12 400s going every 120 seconds in 88-87 consistently the whole way. Ran alone because I got there late. Chief timed me.
Wed-Garfield long way.
Thurs-med not sure what run
Fri- 3 on 2 x7 off hard(~3k pace) at Lacey with Dennis. Went anaerobic after the 2nd one and held on for an okay finish.
Sat-RB lot K to JPL with Watts medium. Watts is a surprisingly strong runner. It doesn’t surprise me his brother is a top member on the Williams team.
Miles: 7
Weekly Miles: ~40
Mon- Super easy Lower arroyo.
Tues- 8x400s going every 120. 87-86s the whole way.
Wed- Lacy long way super easy with 2 laps and back.
Thursday- 5-4-3-2-1 with Dennis
Fri- easy jogging around Pomona with Dennis. Very hot.My 1500 got moved straight to finals.
Sat- SCIAC finals 1500m-4:59 12th. Very hot and windy again! This time I sat behind that mofo that did the same to me last time. With 250 to go he did the same thing but again I couldn’t respond. I kicked it in real hard and barfed all over the field. Part of me wanted to run the 5k but I just wasn’t feeling it.
Driving back, there was a huge fire in Sierra Madre. It lit up the whole mountainside with 200 foot flames. Then Black interhouse. I drank for the first time in several months. Basically the entire team showed up to the party which was hella cool. Dennis kept trying to think of a crazy adventure which would involve us using our super speed to escape security or the Po-Po. I promised we would streak through the houses at some point.
Weekly Miles: ~30
Totals:
Wk 1: 36
Wk 2; 38 (37 cycling)
Wk 3: 45
Wk 4: 43
Wk 5: 40 (12 backpacking)
Wk 6: 26 – no long day from backpacking
Wk 7: 40
Wk 8: 23.5 – Groin Injury
Wk 9: 37
Wk 10: 39
Wk 11: 23.5- Spring break skiing + sick
Wk 12: 25 –sick
Wk 13: 39
Wk 14: 30-foot thing
Wk 15: 40
Wk 16: 30
Season Total: 516 ± 20 ( ≈ 505 is my guess)
I have mixed feelings about this season. On one hand it was my first complete track season as a distance runner. I ran three PRs, stayed quite healthy, and gained valuable racing experience, albeit not in the main pack. However some part of me is quite disappointed by the season. This was supposed to be the season where stuff started happening. Little glimpses of future speed would show through and the fruits of 8 months continuous running would be realized. That never happened. I thought that, hey, if I ran 5:01 at interhouse last year in trainers with a fairly brief winter off-season, I could definitely hit 4:40 this year, maybe even 4:35 in the 1500. I hit 5:01 again at interhouse this year off a much bigger winter base. I did PR in the 3000 and 800 slightly, but my 1500s never got that good. Even after Oxy, where I ran a 4:57 alone and a bit sick, I was still a bit hopeful. But it never came. It just…didn’t. Maybe I wasn’t running hard enough. Maybe I was backing off instead of attacking and not having people around me kept me from being motivated. But at SCIACs I ran behind someone the whole way, still only in 4:59, and proceeded to hurl afterwards suggesting that I did indeed run almost as hard as I could have. This will still be my first XC season off of a full base with a solid summer of training, but I am a bit doubtful. I could just run Scott’s plan and come in and hope for the best. Or instead of just sitting there and being sad that I’m not fast, I could go out and work my ass off. I could get up to 75-80 miles. I could drop 800 miles this summer. I could see what happens. If I get horribly injured and drained all season, well I have one more season to not do that. If I break 30 or 29, well then I will know I did something right. To do this I will have to be very careful to take excellent care of myself and my legs. I’ll have to dedicate myself. If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it.
4/28/08- Lacy Long way very easy with Dennis. Dave met us above Lacy and we went 6:45 pace back to school.
Miles: 4
4/29/08- Lacy long way plus laps medium-hard with Dave and Chief.
Miles: 5
5/3/08- Easy 1000 yards
5/4/08- 2500 yards plus a ladder workout med. Hard.
I added up the miles for this year:
Summer Training: 300
XC: 435
Winter: 235
Track: 505
Total: 1475-1500 Miles
