Week 1: Track season!

(Monday, 7 January)
So, I'm choosing to focus on the fact that it's the start of track, and not that it's the start of school. Good things that happened today: Bob gave us his most recent T&F news, I got a $25 gift certificate to a running shop courtesy of the Tiger Run (yessss), I also got permission to run more miles from Scott. And, I have a heart rate monitor on the way! (I am such a datawhore.)

Did a run mostly with Masha that was kinda like Huntington - the median was all good, but it did get dark. Took us about 47 minutes to go Lacy-St.Albans-H-SM-Lombardy. She's in good shape, hurray!

(Tuesday, 8 January)
I have decided that the 15 minute long totally gratuitous stretching sessions are utterly useless, so from now on I'm going to do 2 miles warmup, stretch for 3-4 minutes, and then head out on the run. It's pointless to sit there and get cold. Also, doing a few miles after the run is okay too.

Today I did just that; I did 2 miles of warmup, stretched a bit, ran 5 miles with the team (slowly to keep everyone together) and then 1 mile by myself on the track (a bit faster, it felt good). I think I'm going to keep trying to just increase the pace bit by bit on each run from beginning to end, so that can start honing in on how each tempo feels.

(Wednesday, 9 January)
1.5 warmup, then Lacy long with 12 strides. Didn't go too crazy with the strides, but just tried to keep my elbows in and my knees up and bend forward. Also did abs, lunges, and some weight room stuff.

(Thursday, 10 January)
AM: ~6 mile tempo at Lacy, starting out real slow and getting to about LT run pace 15 minutes in and then trying to keep it steady or speed up for the rest of the time. 48 minutes. I felt really wobbly and out of it at first (esp. while warming up) and generally am not feeling real great today. May be getting sick. But the rest of the run felt fine.

PM: 40 minutes real slow, especially after I turned back after the rest of the folks went down to Garfield. My stomach felt like shit though, possibly from the milk I drank with my hella fatty lunch from Ernie's (but I was so hungry...) Cold whirlpooled and went to the WBB game afterwards.

(Friday, 11 January)
I continued to feel sick to my stomach today during my run - but this time I couldn't blame it on Ernie. Weird. I ran very, very easy Huntington and just generally tried to relax as much as possible. I lifted and did abs afterwards. Even got to see Kangway in the gym - he looks hellsa buff! Gotta keep my legs resting.

(Saturday, 12 January)
Running with Susan is *so much* better than running with basically any other human, ever. Ever. Really good time with Megumi and Best up at the RB. Ran with Miss Abe for the nice traily circuit around the RB for about 40 minutes, then Susan and I went down to the California part of the Arroyo and back on the archery side. I was muy quiet the last little while because I was suffering in a serious way, but a good way. It felt good to have a tough, serious pace for that long and to hold out for it. Stomach felt better than yesterday, and I'm going to eat easy today and try and flush out whatever the frick has been bothering me. Just wonderful to talk to and run with M and S. Brilliant.

Also, it is really amazingly gorgeous today too. Almost enough to make me forget school and stuff. In other important news, this is the biggest mileage week I've had since the week of September 17th, and that was doing double days (this week was only 1 double). Mileage felt totally doable and wasn't hard miles, just miles. Kinda like this summer-redux.

(Sunday, 13 January)
Warm today! Rode Chantry very slowly and relaxed. I think a day off of running will be good for my legs. They're a little tired but not sore. I am going to get creamed at Boulevard.