"I've made a terrible mistake..."

A la Arrested Development, I may have indeed made a terrible mistake. I'm officially signed up for the mile on Saturday...oh yeah, and I'm also signed up for the 3K.
Oh my god.

The thought struck me randomly when I was walking home from class the other day - hmm, maybe I should run the 3K, it would be good training for steeplechase, and since I'm not really in shape to run fast, I don't want to run the 800 - but I still wasn't exactly ready to jump in and sign up for it until Sunday night, when one of my roommates decided that he NEEDED the BF and I to play beer pong with him. 1 game turned into 4, and suddenly I was at my computer sealing my fate and signing up for the 3K.

Why do I do this to myself? I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen with this...I seeded myself at 12:30 which I think is like 6:40 pace...that really doesn't sound too bad, but seriously, who the hell knows. 15 laps on an indoor track? AFTER running a mile? What the hell was I thinking? Oy. So, needless to say, its going to be very interesting. At least Brittany is running it too, so we can suffer together. There are quite a few really random teams racing at this meet, so hopefully that means there will be at least a few people slower than me? I have no idea. So that's the deal for this weekend. Running the 3K doesn't mean I'm going to hold back in the mile, since I'm probably going to be pretty cranky if I don't run sub 6 this weekend.

So yeah, I'm not especially happy with my race last weekend. It was OK I guess, but I feel like I could have done quite a bit better. Sunday was an 11 mile long run in 1 degree weather...we definitely all had ice beards at one point...but seriously, it was awesome. I actually really enjoy running in winter...I mean, it sucks getting out and the first 5 minutes or so are hell...but the fact that you see hardly anyone else the entire time you're out there, and everything is just so clear and cold...I don't know what it is, but something about it I just love. I mean, would I rather run in perfect fall weather? Obviously. But please, give me a crisp winter day over a humid summer one anytime.

Not much going on on the workout front. 2 mile tempo @ 7:10 with some 100 and 200 meter sprints on Monday, and a 30 minute tempo @ 7:25 (4.05 miles) today. The Shell was so ridiculous today...I spent half my time weaving around the 10 minute milers in lane 6 and dodging flailing arms and idiots standing in front of the weight machines, contemplating their next move. I'm all for people working out, but seriously, sometimes when I'm trying to do something and everyone is getting in my way, it gets really irritating.

Anyway, back to my 3rd hour of Top Chef of the evening, and possibly some biomechanics. It's Madison Restaurant Week, so I'm heading to Dayton Street Grille with the BF tomorrow night for what should be a fantastic 3 course meal of delights...for only $25! Now that's what I call a quality way for him to pay me for the cable bill. :)

ACCEPTED.

So I was having a really shitty day today, and then I got an email that started like this:
"Congratulations on your acceptance to the physical therapy program at Boston University"

Cue me jumping out of my chair and shrieking, and that was before I even got to read the next part:
"As one of our top applicants this year, I would like to notify you of both your acceptance into our program as well as your Sargent Scholar Award."
Yes. An $8000/semester scholarship. ME! One of the best applicants! I honestly can't believe it. I don't even know what to do right now...and somehow I have to go sit through biomechanics at 2:25. I honestly have no clue even what to say right now. All I know is I am OFFICIALLY going to PT school. EEEEEEEE!!!!!

Also, this might mean I'm moving to Boston in 4 months. Um....I'm not going to go there just yet...

I survived the fast heat

6:02 mile to open the season...I'll take it. There's no way in hell I could have run that at this time last season (in fact, I was too much of a wimp to even race at this time last season), and since I ran a 5:44 by the end of indoor last year...only time will tell what's on the horizon for this season.

Failmile = complete. A more complete race report later, but right now there is a Lakefront Brewery and Smuttynose Brewery variety pack and 2 cases of cheap beer ready to be consumed by my roommates and I. Win.

iFartlek

I knew I needed to do a track workout yesterday but I didn't feel like doing intervals, so I decided I would do a fartlek type thing instead. It was actually quite fun - I put on my ipod and the first song that came up I ran hard, next song easy, etc. The catch was, I didn't let myself skip any songs, so if I ended up having to run a 6 minute hard/1:30 easy interval...well, that's the way it goes. It was actually a really good workout - it ended up being about even hard/easy and I was running at around 6:45 pace on the hard intervals, so it was actually kind of sweet. It also made running in the Shell a little less monotonous...it's kind of nice changing pace every 3-5 minutes!

So other than that, I'm signed up to race the mile on Saturday. Yeaaaah. I cannot even ballpark what time I think I'll run. I keep thinking I'm so out of shape, blah blah blah....but at the same time, I've done a TON more this break than I did last year when I was having all my IT band shit, and I still ran a 5:50 mile at Carthage...so who knows? Not to mention workouts can't always predict what I'll pull out when the adrenaline's flowing and whatnot. Whatever, I'm nervous. But I guess we'll just have to see! Also it's going to be really awesome having to basically finish my race, run to my car, and go straight to work...woo hoo! Speaking off work, that's where I'm off to now...so exciting.

Full speed ahead...

With my first track race looming less than 2 weeks away, I'm finally forcing myself to get motivated and start doing some real workouts. I'm not saying that I haven't done anything the past month, because I've had a few really good tempo runs and a couple of races, but speedwork? Yeah, that hasn't been happening. Zero motivation + feeling like crap when I try to do anything under 7:00 pace = no speedwork. I met up with Jade on Sunday to try to do a track workout, and wow, we failboated pretty extremely. We were planning on doing 800s, even like 2 of them, at under 6:00 mile pace. What ended up happened: stopping after 400 of the first 800, deciding 800s were a terrible idea, doing one more 400 and then taking it down to 200s for the last 2. FAIL. How the hell am I going to be in shape to race a mile when I keep screwing around like this? So today I threw myself out the door to do hill repeats on Copeland Street - my personal favorite because it's not a death hill like Topping, but it's no wimp either, and its a little over 2 miles from my house which gives me the perfect warmup/cooldown. It was actually a pretty good workout, though I can definitely tell its been awhile since I've run hills, except for one thing: ICE. Seriously, does no one salt their sidewalks? I almost wiped out like 6 different times, and there were a few spots where I practically had to skate to stay standing. Winter in Wisconsin....its....awesome, except not at all...

I keep looking at my workouts from like sophomore year and how I was rocking out all these workouts and stuff...thing is, I KNOW I'm a better runner now than I was then...but I think it's too late for me to go back to the 800...boo. I don't even know if I really want to run the mile but at this point it seems like the only thing to do...I think I'm too slow for the 800, I can't compete with the people who run the 3K, and I'd rather kill myself slowly than run a 25 lap race on an indoor track. I saw someone doing starts while doing abs at the shell today and it made me miss hurdling...I mean, distance is awesome but the lazy part of me misses having practices that didn't really hurt quite so much. I guess last year I didn't race at the first meet because my IT problems had pretty much screwed me out of running all break, so I MUST be in better shape than I was then...I just feel terribly underprepared. I really want to run a time trial this weekend or something, just to prove to myself that I can run even like a 6:10 mile...that will satisfy me enough to want to race. I just need to get back in season, because I know when I do my competitiveness will emerge again and I'll do anything to PR.

Speaking of PRs, a couple rough goals for 2009. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing with my life after May, so many of these kind of depend on where I end up, but running-wise, I always like having things to work towards...
-PR in the 5K and/or 6K (if I'm still in Madison/racing XC) - this past XC season was kind of disappointing, and I KNOW I can get below 20:45 in the 5K...even 20:30 (my goal for this season) would work

-run a marathon
This isn't happening if I'm still in Madison and still want/have time to do XC, but if I'm anywhere else and don't have the option of competing with a team, I definitely think it's high time I did a marathon.

-Run at least 2 half marathons
I don't think this one will be too hard. I'm already planning on doing the Madison half in May, so that just leaves one more to schedule in the fall wherever I happen to be...

-As far as track season, my current (and pretty randomly decided) goals are:
5:30 mile
sub-12 steeplechase
...and god only knows what other events I'll end up running...knowing me, I'll be throwing the javelin or going back to triple jump before we know it...

-Train smart, and injury free
My hip problems during XC sucked, and to be honest, I don't know how I made it through the end of the season. That one damn workout in the rain almost ruined everything. Basically, I want to make sure I'm stretching and not being entirely ridiculous with the mileage...though I think something in the 40s is what I plan to shoot for for the majority of the year...just because I'm a mileage whore

-And finally...
WIN MY FREAKING AGE GROUP!
Which might mean running a few more road races in '09, but that's OK. I only did 2 in '08, and that's definitely not enough t-shirts and samples for a whole year ;)

Not much more to say about that. Break is awesome, I'm loving being lazy and not having to work an obscene amount of hours. I've watched almost an entire season of House since 2009 began (season 1, thank youuu ninjavideo.net!) with the BF, and since I got season 2 for Christmas, that's probably not going to be stopping anytime soon...ohh goodness. So addicting.

Well, I might be sore after actually doing a workout today, so time to go use my new favorite running tool...THE STICK! I heart it.

[all glory comes from daring to begin]
ancient proverb

Happy 2009!

I am in quite a bit of pain at the moment due to the ridiculous amounts of Smithwick's, champagne, and an irish car bomb consumed last night. It was a fantastic new year's, I'd say one of the better ones I've had, and staying in Milwaukee turned out to be a great idea. The drive back to Madison today was horrendous, and I am still hungover. Hooray, national hangover day!

So obviously I haven't run quite as much as I should have in the past week or so, but I'll be stepping it up now that I'm back in Madison. However, the runs I have done have been pretty awesome - all at pretty fast paces. I also busted out the new XC skis when I was in Elkhart Lake with the BF and that was pretty ridiculous/fantastic. We skiied 6.5 miles on this huge loop so when we got tired at 3 miles we couldn't stop. I fall a lot, and we go pretty slow, but its a lot of fun! And after 3 hours of skiing, I definitely did not feel like I needed to go running! I was sorrre.

I also did a road race on New Year's Eve, the RACC Run Into The New Year. It was pretty last minute, and I mainly signed up because you got a long sleeved t-shirt and a bottle of champagne (Andre...keeping it classy). It actually turned out to be an OK run though...I went out in 6:30 because apparently I enjoy being ridiculous. Obviously I wasn't going to maintain that pace...I'm not really in racing shape at all right now so that was just absurd. I ended up finishing in 21:58 which actually was quite a bit better than I was expecting! However a couple of things were just ridiculous: first of all, I got beat by a 10 year old girl who ran like a 21:30...she was a little powerhouse! And second of all, its pretty much my goal in life to win my age group in a road race - I realized that I've literally gotten 2nd or 3rd in virtually every race I've ever done, but the only road race where I've won my AG was the first 5K I ever did, which I ran in like 29 minutes or something ridiculous like that. They gave out medals for the top 10 in each AG at this race, and it was 4 year intervals, so I was basically guaranteed a medal, and I ended up getting second so my name was announced at the awards ceremony and that was kind of cool. BUT...the girl who got first beat me BY LESS THAN A SECOND! Yeah. 21:57.xx. Absolutely ridiculous. All I had to do was kick 2 seconds earlier...but what are you going to do. Anyway, it was fun and I got to try out all my fancy new cold weather running gear I got for Christmas since it was like 4 degrees out.

Well, happy 2009! I don't really do new year's resolutions but I hope this year will be happy, healthy, and full of PRs! =)