The Renegade

Tempo at Mantua Lake today. Went pretty well, it was a beautiful afternoon in Mantua. After a good warmup and stretches, we started. My shins were hurting a bit the whole warmup, but once we started, I didn't feel too bad. First mile was 6:19, felt pretty good, and we had almost the whole varsity crew in one group, with Jack running with Coach up ahead. It was awesome. We slowed up after that one, that was a mistake. Next two miles were 6:40 and 6:37, and I still felt good, and we were still in a pack, then after 3 miles, I started to pull ahead for a half mile by quite a bit, then I totally blew up and I couldn't go any faster. Then Austin passed me up, and I kind of just floated to the finish. Last mile 6:44.  I think if I had just stayed in our pack I would have been fine, learned from that for sure. 6:36 average, so not bad at all. SLOW mile cooldown, and then got bussed back to the school. When we got to the track I (very willingly) humored Strand and "modeled" for an XC vid he is making, so basically it was like a 350 meter stride, than jogged some more with Jack around the track to make it two. 

Nice slow run with Jack, Paul, and Damon up to USU, and back on the canal trail. Felt pretty tired so I'm glad we went slow. Did some strides after. 

AM: 2 easy miles around the Woodruff neighborhood, felt good.

PM: Mile reps at Willow Park, same place we did'em last year. Went pretty well, I'll just put my splits out there first off: 6:09, 6:00, 6:04, 5:40. Started out pretty relaxed and used the same effort level for all of them. They really didn't feel too bad. The only one that really hurt was the last one, but I was prepared to go fast for it. I even changed into my flats, so I was ready to go H.A.M. They were done on a basis of one every ten minutes, so we had about 4 minutes of recovery between each, thought about just doing straight ten minute miles for (JK). 2 mile cooldown, and then about a half mile worth of strides. 

Getting ready for the Aggie Invite tommorrow by helping set up the course, with a little run-through too. Can't wait to race and see how much faster I can run this season. 

NOT a good day for me. I don't have a lot to say other than I felt really strong for the first half of the race and then my "heart problem" started acting up right at the top of the course (its still a flatter course), and I got passed for the rest of the race after that. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of this, and hopefully this won't happed in a race again, at least. Good job to everyone else who ran it and did well.

Met up with Jack, Damon, and Paul at Jack's house (near Old Maine) and then breakfast after. I ran with them for the first few miles up to Gibbons Park at a pretty slow pace, and I felt good so ditched them an looped through the River Heights park and eventually back to the house. 7:57 average, but I was probable 7:15 average once I started running alone. This definitley helped me take out my woes about yesterday and that not all hope is lost. I'm eager to give racing another shot next week at Pre-Region in Salt Lake and then redeem myself on the USU course on last time at Cache-Box.