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. 

Let's hear for the olutions...

Resolutions, revolutions & evolution... 
At the very beginning of the 2011-2012 season I resoluted (yes I made that word up) that I'd blog once a week no matter what. While I admit I don't always post in immediately, I have held up my end and successfully had at least a post a week since October. Then by the beginning of the indoor season there was a new revolution to openly share my goals, something I've never done. Now at the completion of one season I feel like not only the physical changes in my training, but my attempt to vanquish bad old habits by adding new healthy positive habits have sincerely evolved me into a more round athlete. Of course there is always room for improvement but I know that I'm on a greater road to success now.

Strength in numbers

This past week was a good training week for me. Numbers wise it's looking good to be a solid upcoming season. After a dismal week the week before, and deciding to take accountability for my own actions or lack thereof, I was able to pull off some semi-impressive (at least in my own training history) feats.
It started off on Monday. After weeks of lifting I am proud to say that I can now free squat over my own weight. Made my day being able to stack the bar with 45lb plates. I do have one gripe for the day, as I was getting my run in for the day on the dreaded treadmill (never my 1st choice but most sensible since I was already at the gym), someone comes and plops on the treadmill directly next to mine. I know it seems trivial, and maybe it is, but there are over 20 other EMPTY treadmills at that time, why do you have to situate right next to me. I understand when it's busy, there's no choice, but when I'm the only person on the treadmill I just don't find it necessary. It's one of my crazy pet peeves, unless I'm training with you, there's no need to get all that up close and personal with me. Rant over, just had to get that out.
On to Tuesday's practice, which proved to show that my training is on the right track. Most of our workouts these past couple of weeks have been speed endurance building workouts, this one was more of a 400m specific workout to see kind of where we are. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to roll out, especially after not running for almost a week, a not so solid warmup and following a pretty heavy lifting session the day before. Usually this time of year, if I'm healthy, for 400's I'm hitting in the mid 70's, for 300's I'm mid 50's, and 200's anywhere from 35-32. Well much to my surprise, only after looking at my coach like he had 3 heads when he wanted 65 for our 4, I managed to come in a low 67. The crazy part was I pushing to race not even train 65/64 at the end of last season, much to my dismay, so that was quite a shock. For the 300's I pulled in some low 50's and the 200's were 31-32. A very promising start. I won't say that it was an easy feat and by the end of the workout my entire body was on fire from my lungs down deep into the muscle fibers of every body part, especially the legs. Some serious lactic acid. I'm super happy to know that I'm well ahead of where I've been in years and it's just the beginning.
My week continued on not at quite as fast of a pace. On Thursday I learned that jump roping for 100 meters  times 16 with high knees is difficult and painful but with the right group of people can be quite humorous. I'm beginning to find little joy in the things I enjoyed as a kid like skipping and jump roping. Encompassing them into the track world brings a whole new meaning to the once cute actions. Saturday morning I wrapped my week up with a long early morning trek to Van Cortlandt Park for the breakfast of champions, 10x150m hill repeats.
I'm proud I made it through a week unscathed and managed to not miss any workouts. Well almost, I did push off my yoga class I planned on doing on Sunday night, but since it was my rest day I may be able to let that one go (6 days out of 7 ought to count for something right?).