CCSU- Weekly Log: October 18 to 24

Raced the only XC 5k of the season on Friday. Also my only race in CT this year (assuming I don't do a turkey trot or road race in the next few months).

Monday: 7 Miles

Easy run around Madbury trails, did strides on the soccer fields which had my tight legs leftover from last week feeling a lot better. Got some nasal spray from health and wellness which finally got rid of my sore throat and I was able to return to practice.

Tuesday: 7 Miles

Easy loop in the two foss farms. Felt mostly good but had a strangely difficult time breathing.

Wednesday: 10 Miles

Longmarsh. Felt very smooth on this one.

Thursday: 7 Miles

Pre meet. Felt tired and tight on this.

Friday: 11 Miles

AM shakeout in college woods before taking the bus to New Britain, CT. I ended up being put in the JV race at the last minute. While I considered myself to be in the top 7, I had very low expectations for this race given that I hadn't worked out for two weeks and potentially could feel pretty terrible out there. I was okay being in JV as 1) I got to race first and 2) there was less pressure. 

We got there around 1:50PM for a 3PM race start. We usually start our warm-up drills 50 minutes to an hour out from the race, but ended up starting around 2:20PM due to many of us waiting in the long port-a-potty. This was frustrating as this was really the coaches' fault for not scheduling us to get there earlier and give us time in a situation like this. 

I was still content with the amount of time we had to warm-up and get ready for the race. We ended up having about 15 minutes after our warm-ups to get into race gear, put spikes and do final strides which felt like plenty of time to me. I was not happy when one of our coaches repeatedly told us to hurry up getting our spikes on and get over to the line, which made no sense given how much time we had. I ended up having about 12 minutes to gun time after doing my first stride. I felt my spikes were too loose and ended up tying them way too tight which I felt during the race. 

We ended up going 4 minutes earlier than scheduled which was a little annoying. My reaction time is awful and I felt one of my teammates behind me kick my feet because I didn't really move at all at the gun. I then very comfortably accelerated into a fast pace and was right at the leaders at the end of the soccer field. I'm not sure why, but this is the most controlled I've ever felt in an XC start. I cruised in towards the end to put myself just behind the leaders but not have to take the lead myself. I felt fantastic through about half a mile. Up until we hit the small hill, I felt very comfortable that I could take the lead at any point and had so much in the tank which is unusual for me (usually I'm sluggish at the start of XC races). Unfortunately, due to probably tying my shoes too tight and the lack of any kind of harder work the last weeks, I tightened up really badly after going down the hill and the pack slowly inched away from me. Brayden passed me there and eventually gapped me. My energy was fine, but my legs were heavy and unresponsive. I went through the mile in 4:55ish, before proceeding to get passed by Vose and Kevin, fade pretty far back (25th maybe at one point) and slow way down in the 5:20s. 

I absolutely despise this course as its three laps and with a good chunk of pavement. Most guys opted for flats, but I don't own any and it was very inconvenient to have to weave back and forth to stay off the paved path. Eventually, I realized the race was almost over and I still had something left. I started to move up half a mile out and caught a bunch of people, including Kevin and Vose. Finished in 16:10, pretty much what I expected and at least 3 seconds faster than Freshman year. I'm completely okay with that result given the low expectations after missing so much practice, but I do think I could have run at least 15:40 feeling fresh and strong coming in. Longish (4.5 mile) cooldown where I felt gassed. 

Saturday: 9 Miles

Recovery.

Sunday: 11 Miles

Bennett. Felt very tight and unpleasant on this.

Weekly Total: 60 Miles

YTD Total: 1,954 Miles

Weekly Log: October 11 to 17

Tough week as I wasn't allowed to go to practice due to have some cold symptoms. Sore throat and a little bit of mucus, but probably the most mild cold I've ever had. 

Monday: 3 Miles

Planned a 6-7 mile loop on Dover roads, but my leg/knee achiness was especially bad today. Tried out a new New Balance shoe, the Vaygo (bought only because of low price) which caused horrible discomfort on the bottom of my feet similar to what I had with a pair of adidas in the spring. The combined discomfort of the two (more the shoe issue though) had me stopping frequently where I eventually just bailed.

Tuesday: 8 Miles

Planned a decent looking loop at Stonehouse Pond (Barrington), but after half a mile or so, the green markers disappeared. Followed some arrows onto an extremely muddy and wet trail where I fell into mud up to knees and water up to my chest before coming out to a dirt road. I figured I just missed a turn and was disappointed when I asked some people walking what road this was that the name didn't line up with anything on my trail map. Had to backtrack and ended up just throwing in a few more out and backs. Everything else was well marked, just the one trail I needed wasn't. Decent place and some decent trails, but very poor marking on the one perimeter trail.

Wednesday: 11 Miles

Pawtuckaway loop, this time without the "mountains" (essentially large steep hills but I don't think they technically qualify as mountains). Still a good 1,400ft elevation and 6ish miles of singletrack. Just tired and out of it on this run, was glad to be done. Run felt really long going close to 9:00 average pace. A big takeaway from this run is I ran this without the ankle brace on 5-6 miles of moderately technical singletrack and had no sprains nor anxiety about a possible sprain/twist. My ankle isn't quite 100% but given there seems to be a low risk of spraining/rolling it and there's no longer discomfort when trying to invert it, I'm close to being full health on the trails. My repeated weak ankle and many ankle rolls was one of the worst things about this year and the sooner I can be done with that, the better.

Thursday: 9 Miles

Parked at Garrison Hill tower in Dover planning on running half trails, half roads out to Rollinsford (Six03 Dixon's Revenge course). Quickly found the trail was horribly overgrown so I bailed and made a new route with about 3 miles trail (Dover community trail), return road. Felt a bit tight but better as I went on. Had little motivation at the beginning. 

Garrison Hill Tower: Dover, NH

Friday: 10 Miles

Mapped out an 11 mile road loop with a 3 mile finish on the Rockingham Rail Trail in Newfields/Newmarket. Felt inexplicably uncomfortably tight on this run to the point where I had to stop multiple times to stretch and readjust my shoes. Took a shortcut to make the loop 9.5 but I really only felt decent on the rail trail portion and even at that, I didn't feel great.

Saturday: 10 Miles

Classic OAB on Ocean Boulevard in Rye. I normally don't like OABs (I made this a loop turnaround) but the wide shoulder and awesome views on this section of NH 1A makes it a pretty good running/biking road. Rye is a really nice town/area and I love Odiorne Point (where I park for these runs). It's underrated compared to bordering Portsmouth, which is far more crowded and much worse for running. 

Felt really tight again, but not quite as bad as Friday. Threw in a hard mile 6 (5:29) to see if that would help my legs but it didn't. The effort didn't feel good at all either. Held on just to get the run done.

Sunday: 0 Miles

Was sick of being sick and unable to practice, so I wanted to see if not running would help. 

Weekly Total: 51 Miles

YTD Total: 1,945 Miles

Weekly Highlight: Getting to explore some new venues and run singletrack for the first time in a while. Also discovering improvement in my ankle. 

Weekly Lowlight: Feeling horribly and uncomfortably tight as well as not being able to practice or workout all week despite only having mild symptoms.  

New Englands- Weekly Log: October 4 to 10

Monday: 0

Day off. Went for a short walk in Odiorne Point. 

Tuesday: 8 Miles

5x800m in college woods on 3 minutes rest. Was in a group with Aidan Shea and Andrew. First felt pretty comfortable, the third felt difficult on a slight uphill and then I started to tie up at the end of the 4th one. Lost ground immediately and got dropped hard on the 5th. Difficulty: 3/5.

2:34, 2:23, 2:26, 2:24, 2:27. 

Wednesday: 10 Miles

Easy mostly trail run up into Madbury.

Thursday: 9 Miles

Solo after a few miles since everyone was going short.

Friday: 6 Miles

Typical conference course run through as a pre-meet. Interestingly, New Englands is just one of two meets (of 7) on our schedule that is on a Saturday. There are times where it's nice to compete on a Friday afternoon/evening, but generally I prefer Saturday morning. 

Saturday: 11 Miles

New England (NEICAAA) championships at Franklin Park. I had wanted to run around 26:00 in the first two meets, but after not even breaking 27 twice, I figured 26:30 was a more realistic expectation for today. I had felt good going into Coast to Coast, but that was not the case today. Tight legs, achy knees/legs that I had been dealing with all week, and generally very low energy/weak pre-race. I'm used to the last one as I rarely ever feel energetic before races, but it's frustrating to have tight legs. Of course, it's going to happen sometimes but it's easier to feel confident heading into races with some pop in the legs. 

This race is much more comfortable than Coast to Coast. At Coast to Coast, going out in 4:55-5:00 puts you in the bottom 10% of the field and there's a lot of shoving/very little room. Here, it puts you mid-pack and you get a little room to breathe. I had felt I went out a touch slow at Coast to Coast in 5:00, and was aiming for about 4:55 here. I felt very tight and locked up at the start and felt I couldn't get out quite as hard as I wanted. Shortly in the race, I noticed besides the tightness, I felt weak and cold. I ended up settling in right around Kenney and we ran pretty close to each other through around 5K. This definitely helped mentally as I was very disappointed to feel low on energy so early and what I really wanted to do was just pull to the side and drop out. It kept me in it seeing as bad as I felt and as slow as I felt, Kenney was still right there. We went through the mile in 4:55, but slowed more than I would have liked through 2 miles with a second split of 5:25 (vs 5:19 at Coast to Coast). 

Andrew caught us going down Bear Cage hill and while I once again didn't feel the drive to go with them, they never got far enough away from me. We went back and forth through the wilderness and through the 5K (16:45ish?). I repassed Andrew just before this point and shortly after 5K, noticed Maine's Elijah Caret (former UNH) passing me. While Kenney and Andrew helped me mentally through the 5k of this, Elijah brought me to a strong finish. Elijah would slip past people left and right in the wilderness and continued as a steady pace as others were fading badly. The wilderness is by far the toughest section of the Franklin park courses. While most of the Franklin park course is fast, smooth grass, the Wilderness is a lot of loose dirt, sand, rocks and tight turns that makes it very easy to lose focus and run really slow here. At Coast to Coast, I kept moving up, yet only managed 5:40s in the wilderness. If you're not in the front of the pack, you need to be passing constantly and making moves throughout the wilderness to close well and not lose a bunch of time. Elijah seemed to recognize this as he was passing people left and right. It seemed like he was going really fast, but I saw the importance of what he was doing and tried to follow every move he made. I eventually caught him just past mile 4, we ran stride for stride up bear cage hill. While I repassed him on the downhill, I was pretty tired in the final stretch and didn't have quite the kick I wanted (still something respectable, but slower than last week) where he passed me in the final 20 meters. Crossed in 26:33, finally a PR and good for 3rd on the team (didn't have the full squad today). 

Full results here. I think this was a solid race. I know I'm capable of so much more but after running my September races over 27 minutes, this was a good step forward.

Sunday: 8 Miles

Recovery. We've been doing team run-rolls, where we run a loop 2-5 miles, then spend 5-15 minutes rolling out and stretching then repeat until we get the desired mileage. I was so tight on the first loop so the rolling out really helped today.

Weekly Total: 53 Miles

YTD Mileage: 1,894 Miles

Weekly Highlight: Decent race that I can walk away without much regret or disappointment.

Weekly Lowlight: Struggling with knee/leg pain and discomfort that has plagued me all month (writing this 10/31). Feels very bad walking around in the morning and at the very beginning of runs, but the more I move around the better it feels. It doesn't feel very good on warm-ups or strides but fine during races. I was hurting so much walking around the day before the race that if it didn't improve while running that day, I was considering asking Coach not to race and give me a few days off or just call the season. Fortunately, it felt okay after a few minutes of run but it's really frustrating to have pain at certain moments and the uncertainty of not knowing if you can run. While I'm glad I was able to compete this season, I feel I'm nowhere near 100% healthy and sometimes, it's just miserable to run.