Tuesday, January 06, 2009

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

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