Why hello there stranger

Two words. Blog fail.
It's been over a year since my last post. It's a good thing this isn't my job and I don't get paid for it. I'd be living on the mean streets of NYC if that were the case.  I suppose an abbreviated update is necessary. Finished my last outdoor season with a pretty stellar PR. Became an assistant coach at a local Division 3 college, I headed up the Distance crew. Started a long distance relationship with a pretty incredible guy in Minnesota. Battled through a cross country, indoor and outdoor season with my athletes, watching and helping them break through barriers and have PR after PR. Battled through finding a balance to train myself while coaching and working to make end's meat, complete with total flops and PWs (personal worsts). Made a huge life decision to move at the end of this summer from the beloved coast I was born and raised on and my big city living, to the middle of nowhere country, MN (I might be over exaggerating the middle of nowhere part) to be with that previous mentioned incredible guy.

Now here I am, it's July 4th. After my coaching season ended in May, I decided I was going to buckle down and try to salvage the rest of my outdoor season. It hasn't exactly gone as planned, actually it's been way worse. I knew I was not in tip top shape but I didn't think I was as bad off as I really was. While I tried to maintain throughout coaching, I wasn't consistent. That was one key. I also forgot to maintain my mental game, looking back that was one of my biggest flaws. I took all the bad performances pretty hard and to heart. I had given up any and all hope to go to Club Nationals and running a decent time. While I had the standard, I couldn't afford to trip out West without monetary assistance and with team budget cuts, I was the bottom of the totem pole to receive anything.

This past Wednesday things took a change. Thankfully my range of abilities on the track (while not always top tiered) sometimes helps me in some situations, other times it can be a hindrance. This time I used it to my advantage. The only way I was going out to Seattle for Club Nats with help for funding was if I could do multiple events. Seeing as I only had the standard in 400IH, I was a bit in a bind, until I realized we didn't have someone in the steeplechase. Good thing for me both steeple and hurdles are typically under fielded with athletes so goal isn't for time rather than to finish to grab as many team points as possible (I did this a few years ago in Nebraska). That range also helped with relays. So with that my grim outlook was turned around and next week I'll  be flying out to Washington to compete with my team. I have zero expectations for times in races, the goal is to finish as high in place as I can to score points and to fight through the race pain to give my all. I know no matter what I do my season won't have the outcome I wanted but hopefully these final races will bring a little bit of peace to it.

Rinse and repeat

Step one laugh all day. Step 2 believe in yourself and your training. Step three PR. Rinse and repeat for the next 6 weeks until the end of the season.

Boom just like that another hurdle race down, a teeny tiny personal best achieved and goal #2 crossed off my goal board. While I admit I did have a little bit higher expectations for this race, I'm not dissatisfied. For one a PR is a PR. Two this was probably the first race, dare I say, that felt easy. Saying that a race felt easy may not be the best thing, because clearly it means I held back, but it's also not a bad thing because it means if I ran what I did and it "felt easy" it means potential to race even faster (which is actually an amazing thing).
I executed my race mostly like I wanted. The 2 biggest steps I've been working on in practice are cutting back on my studder stepping and alternating legs. I'm proud to say there was far less stammering to hurdles and I willfully switched legs when necessary (this is huge). My speed tells me I'm able to go way faster, (hence a pretty fabulous run down of a girl ahead of me after hurdle 10), now the goal is putting two and two together and turning on that next gear earlier in the race. I've got 2 more hurdle races and a handful of flat races before Club Nationals. If I'm able to keep the momentum going I think I might even surpass my own expectations. Sky's the limit, onward and upward I go.

Surprise

Surprises in my experience are either really really good or really really suck. The former is always welcome. My last case of surprise came at first as not so welcomed but ended up turning to splendid. After a pretty rough week of an emotional roller coaster from the Boston dealings, a fellow teammate/friend and I decided to have a Friday girls night in, wallowing in cupcakes, banana bread and beer. Then randomly at 930p my text message goes off, I ignored since we were mid chat. About 30 min later checked my phone to see what the text was, it was from my coach. This was the dialog Coach: Penn Relay 4x400 Me: Um do you need me? Hadn't planned on running it Coach: Surprise Me: Ok End text convo. Yes I was surprised, then got a little excited, then a little annoyed (because it was last minute) then a excited again (because I thought wow my coach has faith that I can hang with the uber fast girls) then annoyed again (because it changed my racing plans from doing an open meet and racing hurdles). The next couple days were on the verge of frustration. How was I getting to Philly? When was I going to be able to race hurdles again? Then finding out there were 2 teams and I was on the "B" Team. Though not an ounce of offense to the other relay mates on that team, I didn't want to forgo an open race to race a relay with the slower of the teams. I know that sounds rude and selfish but in my defense I only have so many opportunities to race hurdles. I eventually snapped out of my grumbling because I know that Penn Relays is supposed to be fun. I had even tried to scheme racing the relay on Friday then sauntering to NJ on Saturday to fulfill my original race plans (last min squashed those plans when I realized it wouldn't have been in my best interest to do that). Pouty mood still a little in effect I hopped on the afternoon bus to Philadelphia, thankfully I had one of my prior training mates and good friend there to disperse my not so pleasantness. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and perfect running weather. We got in a little after 2p, she was set to run in the 4x100 at 5:20p and then both of us in the 4x4 at 7pm, her on the "A" team, me on the "B". After we got to Franklin Field we found our coach to get passes and run down on relays. At that point the first team was down a leg, coach shuffled 1 of the other girls off the second team on to the first, I was lead leg of the second team. Not going to lie I kinda sulked over that for a second because I had hoped that I might be moved up, but I accepted his decision. A little bit afterward he pulled me aside and asked what I thought I could run (since I haven't run an open 400 outdoors yet). I told him wholeheartedly believed I could run a sub 60. He said it was between me and another girl as to who he wanted to put on the A team because we were about the same time wise and he wanted to run the fastest team possible for that team. As much as I wanted to scream pick me put me on that team, I told him my peace of confidence in myself and said that it was his choice and whatever he thought was the right choice I would accept it and run as fast as I could on whichever team I was on. I was very proud of my non meltdown and acceptance during that conversation. Then around 5pm when my coach came by with our relay bibs, he handed them to me said "A" 3rd leg. Say what?! Woah, wasn't expecting that. I looked at him and said "Really, are you sure?", with my heart and stomach doing back flips from the excitement/over joy and then nerves because I knew a lot was riding on my performance now. He nodded and said yes. Surprise. Yes another surprise indeed. At 6pm I set forth on my warmup, then at 20 min til we made our way to the paddock area. Apparently that was late and we were rushed in as they had last called our event. Oops! There were supposed to be 6 teams in the Women's Olympic Development 4x400, to our surprise (yep surprises all around this meet) there was only 1 other team in the holding cube with us, other than the 2nd team. Huh interesting. With the team in there (a team not so known to be sprinters), there really was very little way the "A" Team couldn't win (minus a DQ). We kept waiting to see if the crazy even super faster teams were going to join us in the paddock but it never happened. Then it was go time. Our first girl got out blazing, then 2nd leg, then I lined up to grab the baton for the 3rd leg. I have only once ran at Penn, it was 6 years ago and it was in a 4x100, I knew the track was weird but I didn't really know how weird until I stepped on to run a 400. I got out was running completely by myself, no one was ahead, and the next girl was about 6-10 seconds behind me. I don't really remember much of my leg other than thinking I was at the 200m mark and telling myself to turnover when I was actually at the 270m (weird track). Then passed the baton to the anchor girl and wobbled towards my other teammates on the infield. After our anchor girl finished they ushered us quickly over to the podium stand, gave us each the infamous gold Penn Relays watch the winners are presented with, then had our picture taken. It was all kind of surreal. I never in my years thought I'd have a Penn watch, granted it was by fluke, but still hours before I wasn't on that team. I ended up running a 60 flat which wasn't my goal but still a PB for me and I walked away from a winners stand. I'm not sure what the other girl that was in the toss up cusp ran, I believe it was about the same as me, I can only hope that I ran well enough that my coach's decision was made valid. In the end it turned to be a great surprise and one I won't likely forget.

Let's play ball

Ok so this is not a game of ball but more however a game of playing catch up. My last real post beyond the Boston one was February 21. And well obviously things have happened in between that time and now. As much as I would like to give them all neatly separate posts, let's be honest if I attempt to do that I'll be playing catch up again, leaving the masses of 5 people wondering what's going on. I'm going to recap the past couple months hitting all key moments and trying to not leave out any relevant pieces. Hold on for the lovely ride back in time.

February:

Not going to lie this was a pretty low month for me, when I say low I mean bottomed out low. The saying when it rains it pours, well it was a mastermind storm going on for me. I'd love to elaborate on all the tidings and as therapeutic as it might be I'd rather not hash out all the personal details for the public to see, but it is noteworthy to share that things were bad. Running sucked, my racing sucked, work sucked, things just sucked all around. End of story.

March:

Beginning of March things weren't super great but they started to balance out for me. I will say that as bad as things were the last month I learned a lot about myself and truly grew as a person. I also learned to reach out. I tend to try attempt to tackle everything by myself, which is partially why I ended up in the place I was. But that's neither here nor there. In my personal life things really took off for me and turned a corner at the end of the month.

As for my running, indoor racing season officially ended for me March 5th. I capped off my crappy "train through" season with a mile. I wasn't quite in mile shape but I was curious and I also thought it might be the only way I could salvage the season not hitting a single goal on my goal list. I managed to scrap a 1 sec PB so I will deem that successful. I trained through the rest of the month prepping for outdoor season to start in April.

April:

April 1st was my soft outdoor track opener at St John's in Queens. At this point I hadn't stepped foot on an outside 400m track since November. Yikes! This isn't exactly conducive to 400 hurdles, since you really can't replicate the hurdle placement on an indoor track. The need to race hurdles as much as possible made this meet a necessity. It wasn't fantastic but it also wasn't completely disastrous. More a practice than anything, getting my body primed for the next couple months. I also threw in some 100 high hurdles in for good measure as a debut race since it was a very low key meet where I wouldn't feel intimidated. My goal was to finish and I did that, not pretty but ground work set in place.  

After the April 1 magic then kind of set in, that corner I was turning at the end of last month flipped me into extreme happiness and almost perfection (I say almost because there's always room for more awesomeness). I was connected with insanely incredible people and the already incredible people in my life were right there by my side. The weather was getting nicer, the things I struggled with in my running training came together. I was in bliss. 

April 13th I raced my official outdoor season opener in New Jersey, 400IH then double backed with a 200 right after. What was supposed to be a great post on this meet unfortunately turned to the shadow of the misdealings in Boston. This meet was beyond what I imagined it to be, even though I always have extreme hopeful ambitions. I ended up leaving for the meet a little/lot earlier than I wanted but was getting a ride from a good friend and teammate who was competing in the first event so I just made it work. We got there at 11a, hurdles weren't expected to go off until at least 330p and that didn't include if the meet ran behind (which it did). I decided during the extra downtime to hide away in the car and relax for a couple hours and hopefully decompress before I raced. I don't know if it was this time before hand, my training going well, life in place or possibly the art therapy (I'll have another post explaining this a little more in detail) but I managed a 1 sec PR (3 sec faster race than soft opener) AND some really spot on hurdles. I even hit a handful of hurdles with my right leg lead which I've never done in the past in a race (this is a struggle of mine, I will stutter to a hurdle to make it hit with my stronger left lead). My last hurdle which is often one of the weakest was probably the strongest hurdle of my race. I knew the second that I went over that hurdle it was exactly as it should be, then as touched down I caught a glimsp of the clock at the finish line and couldn't hold back the happiness. I didn't know the exact finish time but I KNEW it was PR. It was seriously the best feeling. Afterwards chatted with a couple teammates and even they said that was the best that they had seen me race. I couldn't get too over my moon since I still had a 200 to bang out. I was already "warmed up"  and pretty lactic from the race so I just sat still for the hot 15 min I had before I had to line up. Did a couple drills, shook out my legs, and wound my legs into the blocks when my heat was called to the line. I really had no super expectations from this race seeing as I just walked off the finish line of another race. When I came out of the blocks my legs were like bricks and did not want to turn over, eventually after 100 meters they got some turn to them. I could see the clock but it was hard to tell exactly what the official final time was. I thought I had a small PR but couldn't be certain until I saw the results. Low and behold it was a .5sec personal best! Well hot damn! Double PRs back to back in an opening meet. I couldn't have been more ecstatic. This. This was exactly that boost to my track ego that I needed. Still a ways to go and still a lot more potential for the hurdles to get much faster but going in the right direction.

Well there you have the great catch up of 2013. Hopefully I won't leave you hanging in rafters again as the next couple months unwind to Club Nationals. 

Goals: Take 2

As an earmark to the end of the indoor season and a way to make myself into a better athlete not only in body but in mind and spirit as well, I have started compiling my new season goals/resolutions.

Resolutions for Outdoor 2012 Season:

1. More consistent weekly mileage. Aim for 20-30miles/wk
2. Keep lifting consistently throughout the season not just the beginning
3. 1-2 days hurdle work in addition to regular Tue and Thur team workouts
4. 1 day additional track/speed workout if not doing 2 hurdle days
5. Monitor diet a little more closely. Mostly my sugar intake
6.  Sleep more.

These are all no brainers, but I need to remind myself about them on a regular basis, and the key for me is staying consistent.

Goals for Outdoor 2012 Season:

Race-800
Outdoor PR-2:24.81
Last Season Best-2:27.??
Goal #1-2:18.5
Goal #2- 2:17.2
Goal #3- 2:16.4

Race-400 IH
PR-71.05
Last Season Best-71.05
Goal #1-68.5
Goal #2-66.3
Goal #3-64.1

Race-400
Outdoor PR-64.14
Last Season Best-64.03
Goal #1-60.5
Goal #2-59.3
Goal #3-58.1


Race-200
Outdoor PR-28.98
Last Season Best-29.87
Goal #1-28.5
Goal #2-27.9
Goal #3-27.3


Eventually I'll break these into the index cards like I did for indoors. I also decided to use outdoor PRs instead of overall PRs because there is a difference between the 2 tracks (not to dismiss my most awesome season that I just completed). Last season also refers to the outdoor 2011 season. Oddly too I realized that previously almost all of my overall personal bests were made indoors, besides the hurdles only because they're not run inside. Quite bizarre since typically most run faster on an outdoor track. Hopefully that will change this time.