It's Business Time.

Monday, 4 May
Recovery day. I jogged 2 miles or so on the NF, which I noted is *slightly* bigger now. When did they take that fence down? Where the heck have I been?

My legs feel tired, but not 100% thrashed (not as sore as they've ever been). I had a lot of tightness, but my hip flexors are doing okay and the shin hasn't exploded. Things are holding together... albeit with proverbial tape and string and spit. I noticed some new tightness, especially in my left hamstring, but the shin didn't hurt while I was running, so that was good. I did some drills and 2 strides just to test the waters, and they felt kinda bad.

Afterward I swam for 30 minutes, just trying to take it easy. I tried swimming fast for 50Y and I did about 40 seconds. I think that's approximately like 80s for 400m running - my 1500 pace. Hilarious.

Then I rolled and stretched and got in the cold whirlpool, which wasn't actually as bad as the cold bath I made myself at home on Sunday night. So it was a pleasant surprise.

Luckily I was able to convince Kim to give me a massage, which was amazing and pretty much blew my mind. In hindsight I'm not sure if I have ever had that acute a pain before - (especially when she did my hamstrings, oof) - and certainly not voluntarily. What is wrong with me?

She really dug into my hamstrings (elbows and all) and also made me feel nice-nice by doing my quads and lower back. Sweet. I'm going to try and get her to work on me later this week too.

Tuesday, 5 May
Biked, 30mi. Not sure how long it took. Was going to go up Chantry, but it was closed (until the 8th- FYI.) Changed plans and went up NY drive to Altadena, top of Lake and down to Lincoln/the RB, a loop down there, then back on Green to Rosaritos for some Cinco de Awesomeness. I gorged myself on Mexican, which hopefully will not kill me. This is the last crappy food I will eat before Saturday. Promised. The legs felt totally fresh while I was riding, but I was not tempted to go hard.

After the ride I hopped into some shorts and did some strides and drills out in the alley, just to test the waters with my legs. The strides were really tough - it was hard to get up to a top speed. But, the drills felt really snappy - so that's a good sign I think. I'm going to hop on the track tomorrow, so we'll see then how I'm doing pace-wise.

Wednesday, 6 May
Track. Worked out with John Doyle, which was totally cool. The guy is legit! We did 3 x 300m with 90 seconds rest, jogged a lap and a half, and then did 3 x 200m with about 75 seconds rest. Times:

54 (90 rest) - got a little excited
57 (90 rest) - kept things under control this time - 19/19/19 for the 200s.
57 - at this point I was dodging kids left and right
4:00 jog
36 (77 rest) - I would have taken less rest but I thought I should show John some mercy
36 (82 rest) - there were kids EVERYWHERE on this one, and I was on the grass and out in lane 4 at some points so I figure this was about a 35 effort-wise
34 - John got a little uppity on this one so I brought it in a little quicker, but I felt like there was a marginal amount of giddyup in my legs, so that was good. I held him off.

Anyways, I wore my flats and my shin felt decent - worse than yesterday, but better than the end of last week. I guess it felt about the same as last Tuesday's track workout. I'm going to baby it for the rest of the week. I was glad for all the little kids running on the track, and for Doyle being there, because it gave me targets and kept me thinking about my form and control. It actually felt really easy to do those short distances. And the pace felt pretty easy too - I hope I didn't take too much rest.

I also did some strides and drills as part of my warmup but I wanted to take it easy on my shin. :)

I'm obviously getting pretty pumped. The plan is to take it easy on my legs, get a massage tonight, and start thinking about rocking out.

Thursday, 7 May
Easy day. I'm getting pretty restless. The legs were feeling relaxed but a bit sore today, which I guess is to be expected. (In particular, my shins felt beat up.) But, it really felt like I got strung with whole new hamstrings. So that's good! I ran for 20 minutes (10 minutes run, 10 minutes drills and a few strides.). On the good news side, I did feel like I had a few steps at max speed today, which I didn't feel the past few days at all. After that, I swam for about 25 minutes. Clint mentioned that there is a swimming class T/Th 3-4pm so I may go next week.

Friday, 8 May
Prerace. I ran a few laps at the NF with Susan then ran out Lombardy to Allen and back. I wore the tall socks hoping they might help, but my shin (the left one) really hurt. Bad. The worst it's been since it started hurting actually. I'm going to just take it easy today. Also, I'm feeling like I may be coming down with something - I woke up today with a sore throat. I hope everything is okay... I guess it's better to have something to think about today rather than obsess about tomorrow. But it would be nice to feel 100%.

Saturday, 9 May (Oxy Invite)
I did it. Finally! And in 4:55 too - even better than my most optimistic dreams.

Here's how it went down. Things started with me being extremely nervous and almost vomiting all over myself all morning. (I hate evening races.) Then I got my game face on and headed to Oxy, where I proceeded to frighten people by pacing around and having a scary face. Thankfully, my shin was feeling much better, so that wasn't distracting me. I did some drills and tried to stay cool and focused by wrapping myself in an icy towel.

When the gun went off, I just tried to think about getting a good position and relaxing as much as I could. There would be plenty of time to get tense. Everyone said I looked like I was jogging - which makes sense, because I came through the first lap right at the back. But I felt good about that - I'd seen the clock at 57 when I came through the finish so I knew I needed to ease up a bit.

I heard something like 79 when I came through the first lap, which was slightly alarming because I'd wanted to do something like 82. So, on the second lap I just thought about not getting stuck behind people, and staying relaxed so I wouldn't lose focus or get negative and implode on the third lap.

When I heard 2:40 at 800m I got a little panicked - this was not the plan (I'd wanted 2:44-6). I remembered what Rene had said - if you get off the plan, just use your guts and run. So the whole third lap, I was just thinking about how close to the end I was, and how far I'd come, and how I wasn't going to let what happened last time happen again. I just tried to think about moving up, and how close I was to getting that "4:xx".

Coming up to the final lap, I swung around a group just before the turn. At this point, I saw the clock hit "3:40" right as I went by - and I could *taste* that sub-five. I became aware of Ian screaming at me, and I was hit with the surprising reality that the next pack was in fact the lead pack. Now I knew that, not only was the 5-minute barrier within my grasp, but the win was, too. I heard Ian shriek "you're gonna win this! you're gonna win this!"

I wish I could say I thought tactically about where/when to pass the front group, but I really didn't - I knew the most important thing was still between me and the clock for that sub-five and I didn't have any time to waste, so I just kept going and swung around the front group. On the far straightaway it was just me and the track. I couldn't see anyone else around the track, hear anything, or feel anything in my body. The closest thing I had to a physical sensation was the tug-of-war going on between my mind and legs, where my mind just kept telling my legs to go, and my legs kept getting slower to respond. But it didn't feel painful like in workouts, it was way more disembodied.

Anyways, those last 200m or so were like meditation. It was just like when I visualize a race, or when I run a workout by myself -just me and the track. I kept thinking that if I ran my heart out no one would be able to catch me - so I couldn't let up for even a second. On the straightaway I saw the clock at 4:43 and I was thinking "I don't know if I can do 100m in 17 seconds - I hope I'm closer than 100m!"

I saw the clock at 4:55 when I crossed the line and I was suddenly surrounded by all my pals - everyone that had been there for me when things went badly last year were now here for me when things went well. It was so awesome to share that moment with everyone who knew how much I'd wanted it and how hard I'd worked for it.

I checked out the video Dave took, and it was pretty amazing to see how far back I'd been - it looked like almost 100m at one point.

400m in - 12/13th place
800m in - 9th place
1100m in - 5th place
(350m to go, you can hear Ian say "you're gonna win this!")
~1200m in - 1st place
final straight: Dixon Farmer says "Katherine Breeden of the North Field Track Club!"

It was pretty sweet to get the shout out over the loudspeaker! Even if I didn't hear it at the time... A great day for the NFTC - Kim tied for 3rd in the high jump (1.65m).

Sunday, 10 May
Little mountain jaunt to get me out of the house; felt really good. Calves a bit sore, but I didn't push things. I'm feeling a bit under the weather and my nose was running a lot but otherwise things were good. Very nice and sunny and breezy out.