I Eat PAIN-cakes for Breakfast

Today was just an easy shakeout. However, I managed a 6:45 mile but that was going down hill. I just wanted to see how fast I could go without pushing too hard. 

Today was an easier long run at about 7:45 pace. I ran with Reagan and Rachel, that was fun. R'Cubed is back. 

I ran all last week, I promise. I just never updated the blog. It was a busy week. I took Saturday and Sunday off because my run Friday left my knee feeling a little tight. I'm trying to exercise caution after my calf injury. Anyways, today was a long run. I ran with Tachel for the first little bit, but then separated after a while. I intended to do a 9 mile run, but I felt crappy today. The pace was awesome though, it was a 7:59 average. I just didn't feel good at all. I think I may have been slightly dehydrated. Also, I was a bit sore from not running for a few days, so that was a factor. I'm going to do a shake out later tonight probably. I'm just happy to have finished today. I've always had a hard time with the crappy runs.

I did a two mile shakeout in the evening. It felt pretty good. Luckily, I finished before the bullet rain came. That was evil. My mom and I had to book it back to the car. S/O to Eugene for running in that. 

Today was just an easy recovery. After, I lifted and did my core. I'm a little sore but feel good for the most part. 

So today at practice, Coach Henderson had us do mile repeats. That threw me off as we've never done them this early before in a season. I didn't mind them though. He just had us so three in all. My times were 6:34, 6:42, and 6:40-50 (Coach and I weren't quite sure on the last one but the girl behind me came in at a 7:03 and I was about ten to twenty seconds ahead of her). All in all, it was a solid workout. My hips went sort of numb because they were sore from yesterday's lifting, but that's ok. I stretched and they felt better. We have a lot of potential on the team this year. I was worried because the boys team had so many graduate and the girls team has been going through injuries, but a lot of people are starting to work hard so I think it will be a solid season for Uintah XC. 

Today was another recovery day. After the run, I lifted and did my core. I felt pretty good. 

Today was a moderate, shorter long run. I felt pretty good for the most part. I haven't been getting the sleep I need. During the run, my coach (who is also a driving instructor) scared the heck out of me. I was running in a sketchy part of town (i don't know it very well) and I heard a car pulling up behind me. I got on the side walk but the car never passed me. I turn around to look at it and all of the sudden the car honks. My heart stopped. I then realized it was Coach Galley. He smiled, gave me a thumbs up, and had the student driver drive away. I'm pretty sure Galley and the two students in the car got a good laugh.

Today was an easy shakeout. 

After the mile warmup, Henderson sent us on a long run. I was supposed to do my seventy minute run, but coach wanted to see how fast I could run six miles. I averaged about 7:30 pace. The course has a good amount of up hill so I was happy. Henderson was too. Our first meet is August 12th. I'm pretty excited to see what I can do. 

Today was an easy recovery day with a lifting session after. I felt pretty good. 

Today was a Farrell run. We did them in four minute sets. We did four sets of four minutes fast and four sets of four minutes slow. I ran most of them by myself because Reagan and I decided to split up the girls team so that it wasn't such a big group.  However, she and I ran the last four minute fast set together along with Kedric. We were all going pretty strong. I felt really good. I don't know my pace, but it was definitely sub seven. 

Today was another recovery run. I went a bit longer today because I was feeling pretty good. 

I finally did my seventy minute run today.  I felt really god today. My pace was about 7:55, so I was happy. I lifted after and felt pretty good. I took a much needed nap after. I'm really excited to see what this season has to offer. We have a really good meet schedule. It's going to be great. 

I've decided that Sundays are just going to be short and easy shakeout days. I've found that if I take two days off, my legs and hips get sore. 

Today was supposed to be long run day but was cut short due to some stomach issues. I felt really good other than that. My pace was really strong even with the hills. They weren't really steep, but they were long and gradual. They get tough after a while. 

I made today my long run day. Tomorrow will probably be speed at practice, but two hard days ina row won't kill me. It was lightly raining outside, which felt really nice. I like running when it's sprinkling outside. The run was okay, it wasn't my strongest. The pace was a little slower than what I usually run my long runs. It's was an 8:02 average today. I'm usually about seven to ten seconds faster. Not every run can be an awesome run. I was chased by two dogs at one point. (For those of you who don't know, this is quite a scary thing for me. I was mauled by a dog and it was very traumatic. I don't like them.) I stopped and let them sniff me and then they left me alone. They barked at me for a while though. They were really fat staffordshire terriers. 

Today was a harder day at practice. Coach had us drive up to yellow hill. I was scared because that usually means ladders, but not today. He just had us run straight up, which isn't much better. It was considerably humid today. I know there are places that have worse humidity, but here we typically are very dry and have 0%. So you can imagine my surprise when it got super hard to breathe and I started felling this cold sweat. I thought I was dehydrated at first, but I've been drinking water like crazy so that wasn't it. I checked to weather after the workout and it said that it was 68% humidity. 

Other than the evil humidity, the workout was good. I would have liked to make it up the hill a bit faster, but I haven't been running hills for very long plus yellow hill is very steep. It's basicallly a 45 degree angle for a half mile. Once I got to the top though, I got my pace faster and going back down was fun. My watch said I was going at a sub six average pace. Hills are always fun. 🙃

Today was a recovery/core day at practice. Coach had us so a few core exercises after the warm up. After that, he sent us on a 20-25 mi ire run. My quads are super tight today. They usually are after hills. It also doesn't help that the day before I ran 10 miles. So the slower recovery run was much needed. I ran with a new freshman named Jody. She is super cool and I see a lot of potential in her. I've talked to her a few times. I was really surprised though because she asked if she could run with me. I was more than happy to say yes. She has a lot of determination. I hope she keeps at it because we need hard workers like her in order to get to state this year. 

So after the normal warmup, coach sent us on an easy 15 minute run. I was worried because he said we were doing speed after and my quads were super tight. After the run, he had us do four sets of 90-60-30's. We had a break after the second set. Those are killer. My quads were okay for the most part. I feel really good about how I ran today. It was definitely strong and I tried to focus a little on my form, which helped me go faster. However, after the workout, my quads got really tight and are currently very sore. Same with my core. I've been rolling my quads out, but nothing seems to really loosen them. Awe well 🤷🏽‍♀️. No pain, no gain. I'll be a stronger runner for it. 

Normally, I would do my shakeout today, but due to minor shin splints, I'm taking today off. They're only in my left shin. They aren't that bad, but I just want to get rid of them before the season starts. 

Tomorrow is the first day of my team's XC camp. I'm super excited. We do all kinds of fun things. Tomorrow is our long run. We run about four miles to this dam and play around in the water and then run four miles back. The next day, we do mile repeats on this hill. They're fun because you get a really good down hill. The team does a bunch of other stuff too. It's really fun. I think it's good for our team bonding. 

Today was the long run at camp. It was four miles down hill followed by four miles up hill. It was very hot. I had to stop and walk a little but only for about 20 seconds. The run was challenging but I did really well. I was the third runner to finish overall and the first girl. My shin splint was ok.