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.

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. 

365 Project

I don't usually do New Year's resolutions, I rather not hold myself to something for the entire year then feel all sorts of guilty when I can't hold up my end of the bargain  Let's be real how many of us really can and actually do, seriously I can't think of anyone I know that has done such. In my running world at the beginning of every season I do do "resolutions" and set goals for myself, because then why would I put myself through the nitty gritty of training uber hard. These typically are only for 3-4 months and much more easily obtained. Do I fall off every now and again, sure but I can revert the next season and make an attempt again.
Well I decided that this year I would make some New Year's resolutions (actually only 2) that sort of had nothing to do with running (because I'm sure I'd like to think there is more to my life than running and track). One of my cheesy cliche resolutions is a 365 project that I've swiped from some of my photog friends. A photo a day with whatever camera I have on hand. I found myself on this train mostly because it occurred to me that I only brought my big girl SLR out from it's dwelling once last year and I honestly didn't take nearly as many pictures as I had in the past with even my little guy camera. Now you ask why in the world am I making a blog post about this?? You 2 or maybe 5 readers don't care and isn't this blog supposed to be about running. Weeeellllll the answers are simply I need to stop slacking on my blog so I figure why not incorporate this in (maybe it'll keep me on point, though I'm sure it probably won't) and like my title description says it's sometimes about that thing I call life mixed in. Also I'm sure 80% of my photos will have something to do with, yep shocker, running. My attempt on here will be a weekly compilation of the daily photos. Let's do this thang. Also please feel free to call me out if and when I do slack.