Thursday, January 31, 2008

Just a thought

So I'm sent an email that contains a thought of the day. Sometimes I read them, most of the time I just trash it. But the one today kind of struck a chord with me in a few different aspects in my life, one definately being running. It said:
"We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies."— Roderick Thorp
I relate it back to the fact that I'm sometimes a little, ok a lot, hard on myself when I'm not performing up to par, but I'm working on it.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Timely Tuesday

Going into practice tonight I knew that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park. Tuesday workouts normally aren't. As I look through our intervals, my prediction was correct. We had an exceptional workout of 3x200 with 90sec rest between each 200, 3min rest, 2x300 with 2 min between the 300's, 6 min rest...now the fun starts 2x(600, 400, 300, 200, 100), the rest in between each of the interval started at 3min down to 60sec btwn and between the ladders was 6 min. For all you non-runners who won't quite understand what I just said...it basically means many fast laps hard with little time to rest. Oh and jello legs and your lungs coming out of your chest. I was skeptical of being able to keep up with my other 3 teammates but surprisingly I wasn't lagging behind like normal. I hit all my times-though I did cut the 600's back to 400's, for the sake of my legs being completely deteriorated. But most importantly I felt good. Exhausted but good. Now it's time to take a fabulous ice bath. BRRRRRR!! My legs will thank me tomorrow.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Weekend of Disappointment

This past weekend was the BU Terrier Invitational. I was excited to start the weekend off, erase last weekend's races, and come out running strong. Friday was day 1-the women's races. I decided to run the 1000. I seeded myself at 3:17 from my 1000 time earlier in the season at the Northeasten meet, even though I knew that I could absolutely run faster. I figured I'd let the race run itself. Right now I'm not fast enough for the heat I'm in to make that much of a difference. I ended up being in heat 4 of 4. I kept saying that all I really wanted to do was beat my seed time, which would result in a PR, but in the back of my mind I didn't just want to beat that time, I wanted to demolish it. I had visions of sugar plums dancing at 3:00. I played the splits I need to hit to achieve that goal, over and over in my head. Thinking I can absolutely do this no problem. Problem was I didn't do it. I did drop 5sec from my seed time resulting in a 3:12. Okay. Not great, but satisfactory, acceptable since I did PR. Here's wherein lies the fault making it just ok...my 200 splits were 34, 39, 42, 43, 34. So my first lap was fast, it always is, 2nd lap I settled a bit from going a bit fast in the 1st lap...perfect, what happened in laps 3 & 4??? And hello lap 5, a 9 sec drop from lap 4. Not good. I know that it's not the training or the body. I wish I could remember what was going through my head in the middle of the race. I remember the beginning and I clearly remember the end because I heard the last lap bell and took off like a bandit, determined to gain back my place loss. I'm satisfied with the time just disappointed in my performance.
Saturday was day 2- the men's races and the women's DMR. I was slated to run the 800 in the DMR. I woke up excited to race, ready to rock. Told my coach that I was going to run 2:24 since I raced an 800 on that track a month before in 2:25. Piece of cake. Not so much. I wish that I could even say ok. No, the time was unacceptable. It's so bad that I can't & won't even type it. Though my relay mates assure me that they're not upset at my piss poor performance. I just can't accept it. I don't believe that there is any excuse viable for the way I ran. My training's finally gotten aboard from being on vacation for 2 weeks. I felt good. So frustrated with myself. So I do what I do best when I'm upset at something. Sulk then punish myself for not being able to do something right by running excessively. I ran 3 times in the course of the day after my disaster. Let's not forget that I warmed up, and allegedly raced. Ok, I admit I went a bit overboard but it's my way of venting pent up anger. When you hear someone say runner's are a breed of their own...this is some of what they're talking about.
So after a rough weekend, I'm hoping that I can figure out where I'm going wrong. The heart's there, the passion's there, the training's there, the support's there. Now it's a matter of getting everything to work together as one.
http://www.flocasts.org/flotrack/coverage.php?c=163&id=7699 (here's video of my 1000 complete with the narrator calling me "Diane" how you get that pronunciation from Deanna I haven't a clue)