Westward Bound

AM: 74 mins. (10.5 miles)
PM: Travel

Welcome to the longest day of my life.

Not really, but it certainly felt that way. Fortunately things started off on the right foot with a solid long-ish run with Jordan at McAlpine. I was happy to see him crest the hour mark, a milestone in light of the past few weeks, and to see that he felt no pain on our two trips up the hill. It was even sunny and relatively warm outside and, dare I say it, felt just a little bit like spring. I'll take it.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon passed in a flurry of laundry, packing and otherwise preparing for the trip out West. Jenna and I left around 4pm for New Mexico--for various reasons, the rest of the team left last night--stopping for an hour layover in Phoenix. Once we arrived in Albuquerque around 11pm desert time--1pm to my tired, bedraggled body--we still had to shuttle over to the rental car center to pick up a sweet ride for our hourlong drive to the Hotel St. Francis in Santa Fe. That's right, we're spending the first half of our trip in Santa Fe. Simmons decided this would help us get acclimated to the altitude, seeing as Santa Fe sits at 7000 feet (ABQ is "only" 5000). All of this meant that Jenna and I didn't arrive at our hotel until past 1, exhausted and desperate for a good night's sleep. I hope our trip includes lots of rest, because I'm going to need it after this busy weekend.

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Two Men and a Little Lady

AM: 51 mins. (7 miles)

This morning I had the pleasure of running with Ben Hernandez, a friend of mine from work, and Jordan, who has finally (almost) put his achilles injury to rest. Ben met at our place at the early (for a Saturday) hour of 7:30 for a few miles of easy running, interspersed with a two-mile uptempo section in the middle. Normally I would have a race or predator run at this point in the week, but since Nationals is next weekend I'm preserving the legs and just doing a few quicker miles instead.

The air was cold at the early hour but the sun was shining brightly, making it a beautiful morning to be outside. Our route was familiar, if unoriginal: a jog down the greenway followed by two big loops around Freedom Park, then a return trip on the greenway. We essentially took the first loop easy and picked it up for the second loop, then cooled down on the jog home. I was happy to see Jordan running pain-free and hope that this trend continues in the next few days. As for me, nothing but easy miles between now and next weekend.

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Easy Friday

AM: 53 mins. (7 miles)
PM: 3 miles

Nice and easy.

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Doubling Up

AM: 56 mins. (7.5 miles)
PM: 3 miles
60 mins. weights + core

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I was actually able to join the team for two practices in one day (normally I can't even make one). Thus, my morning run and weight-lifting session were both done with company instead of solo, which always makes things more enjoyable. Things that were not enjoyable include my calves (rocked from the spikes yesterday), the rest of my legs (hurting from the workout) and my stomach (didn't eat a big enough lunch today and suffered a serious sugar low as a result; had to steal saltines from Jenna's bag during weights to avoid total body shutdown).

More importantly, the entry lists for Nationals were solidified yesterday. Everything looks as expected on the women's side, although I was slightly surprised to see that they took 15 girls in the 5k. They only took 12 in the men's 5k, which unfortunately means that Futsum was the first guy out. Terrible position to be in. This was a result of Adams State qualifying--and declaring--6 guys in the 5k and 6 guys in the mile. No, that was not a typo. Yes, I said 6. The depth and talent of their team is absolutely staggering. At any rate, I'm disappointed that Futs is out but excited to travel to ABQ with Tanya, Simon and Nelson this weekend!

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A Little Help From My Friends

AM: 3 miles
PM: 3 mile w/u + strides
Target: 16x400 w/90 sec. rest @5k pace (80) or faster; hammer #11 and #15
Actual: 76, 80, 80, 79, 77, 76, 75, 75, 74, 74, 71, 75, 74, 74, 70, 75
2 mile c/d
Total: 9 miles

After running almost all of my recent track workouts solo, I'd all but forgotten what a difference it makes to have a solid group on the track together. Somehow the stars aligned and we were able to assemble an all-star cast for today's shape cutting: Tanya, Pezz, Maraya, Holly, Jess and myself. Maraya and Holly would only be running 8-12 intervals but the rest of us were stepping up to 16. Having not run this many 400s in quite a while, I was both apprehensive and excited to see what I could do. Judging from the warmup, I didn't think anything special was in store. My legs felt decent, but it was quite cold and very windy outside, making it almost impossible to get the blood flowing. I did my best to push that out of my mind and just focus on the workout.

With that in mind, you can understand why I panicked a bit when I saw the split for my first interval. The times for #2-5 reflect me fighting to keep the pace from getting out of control; the rest of the workout reflects me throwing my reservations out the window and just going for it. I cannot stress how much it helped to have the other girls out there at the same time. There was always someone in front of me who I could chase, and always someone behind me who I was trying to fend off. In between intervals we encouraged each other and rallied for the next go. When all was said and done, each of us agreed we had a much better workout together than we would have on our own. Even the wind seemed less bothersome than usual. Every way you look at it, this workout brought out the best in us.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I threw on my spikes for the last four intervals. Believe it or not, I haven't worn spikes in almost a year--I even wore flats in my recent 5k and 3k at the Armory--but I'm planning to bust them out at Nationals. With only 10 days until the race, it's probably time for me to start adjusting to them. I'm pretty sure my calves will be less than thrilled with me tomorrow.

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You Must Be Kidding

AM: 7 miles
PM: 60 mins. weights + core

The title is in reference to the fact that it snowed today. In Charlotte. From 10am to 10pm. Give me a freaking break. I was prescient enough to foresee this development and get in an adequate run in the morning. (It also didn't hurt that our standard Tuesday track workout was rescheduled for tomorrow, partly because of the weather forecast and partly because it's our last hard effort before Nationals next weekend.) Fortunately the ground temperature never dipped below freezing, which means that none of the white stuff stuck despite its best efforts.

In the afternoon I met Tanya at the fitness center for weights. It was good times and I will undoubtedly be sore tomorrow.

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Early Morning Pool

AM: 7 miles
25 mins. pool
PM: 4 miles + strength

As much as I loathe Monday morning pool practice, at least it gets me up and out the door at a respectable hour. Today I opted to run to pool and back, adding an extra loop around Freedom Park for good measure on the return trip. Not much to report; all is well.

I went the extra mile this afternoon (literally) after it was brought to my attention that it might snow in Charlotte tomorrow. Again? Seriously?!? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's March. Sigh. At any rate, due to the weather forecast and the amount of time between now and Nationals, Simmons preemptively moved our Tuesday track workout to Wednesday. The weather might dictate my runs tomorrow, but hopefully I can still get in some decent mileage.

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