Weekly Log: October 15 to 21

Pretty late in posting this one, although you can probably imagine why.

Monday: 5 Miles

Garrity. Kept it relaxed yet still felt heavy/uncomfortable.

Tuesday: 9 Miles

Was nervous about working out again as it's been a long time since I had a good workout and my legs just don't function these days. Smooth/relaxed 2 mile warm-up, felt good. Hard/windy 2 mile road tempo in 10:33 (with Tim Kenefick and James Busi, Tim was about 5s ahead, James about 5s behind). Felt okay going out but the pace just felt super fast and I couldn't hang with Tim going up a slight incline almost halfway in. Felt like the back two mile of a road race; legs started out fresh but got tight hallway through although felt more normal than usual. Followed up with a relaxed/easy 5xbus stop hill, legs felt amazing. 3x1100 in the woods, around 3:28ish splits, legs felt mostly good except for the 2nd one which was hillier. Difficulty: 4/5. Tempo was really hard, hills were smooth/easy, 1Ks were smooth but I was just exhausted at that point. Best workout I've had in a while.

Wednesday: 9 Miles

Got to go with the long group again, which was really nice. short snell. Started out relaxed then everyone started to cut down. I tightened up a little but still felt pretty good/smooth as we ran some low 6s at the end. Was happy with how it felt, seemed like a huge improvement.

Thursday: 6 Miles

Pre-meet short rose with some strides after. Felt mostly good at nice, easy pace but legs were slightly heavy.

Friday: 6 Miles

CCSU Mini Meet. Not much to say here. I really thought I was back this time after three great runs this week, but as I having been the whole season, I bombed another race. Good thing coach didn't put me in varsity as I would have sunk as usual.

Wasn't feeling great at all on warm-ups and thought my chances at a sub-15:30 had evaporated when I heard I was in JV. Still even though my enthusiasm wasn't there any more (terrible course also, three laps with one third of each lap on pavement including stepping on and off curbs) it was race and I sure wasn't to going to dog it. Pretty nervous again. Got to line up in the front for the first all season being JV now. Like usual, initial takeoff was slowly but it didn't take long for me to get up there. I had one my best starts ever, picking my way to the front effortlessly. It took no time to get in a good position, but unlike HS where I would have continued to rocket the next half mile, I showed restraint and pulled just behind the lead PC group which included Sean Meehan. I felt a little wobbly and uncomfortable going over curbs and roots but overall I felt surprisingly great. I hung right at the back or maybe a few meters behind that PC group. Avoiding the pavement was really awkward as I was one of the few to wear spikes. Despite feeling great, my race was over before I knew it as I came back up to the starting field and approached the mile mark, my hamstrings suddenly got extremely tight. The lead group got 10 meters on me, and I didn't counter it. The rest of the field portion on even ground only felt worse as a few guys passed me. Hit the mile in 4:52. I was hoping I would regain motion on the slight downhill, but no such luck- my legs continued to feel worse the entire race. I was passed and passed again and had no response, finishing in 16:13.

Definitely wish I didn't race, easily the most disappointing and upsetting of the race. It's incredibly annoying feeling good earlier in the week when it meant nothing race day. Glad to be done at this point, simply too depressing for me to keeping through these stages of hope and then absolute failure. I was extremely disappointing at my race at New Englands, but I was just extremely depressed here.

Saturday: 6 Miles

Thought I'd be going home in victory, but I instead went home in failure. Woody hill, felt like complete garbage. Legs were really tight but eventually loosened up; just had no energy on this one.

Sunday: 8 Miles

Fueled worse and got less sleep than Saturday yet somehow felt great on this great. Slight heaviness but nothing disruptive and overall just a very enjoyable group run in B-game on quality trails.

Weekly Total: 49 Miles
YTD Total: 1,744 Miles

Weekly Highlight: No

Weekly Lowlight: Pretty much would be a yearly lowlight. It wasn't the week, so much as a day but just failed again when I was least expecting and it hurt the most this time.

Week October 22 to 28

Monday: 6 Miles

Back to my legs feeling like crap. Time to call it a season.

Tuesday-Sunday: 0. Did some lifting though for the first time ever which was fun.

Weekly Total: 6 Miles
YTD Total: 1,750 Miles

Some thoughts

Just really sad and upset about this season went. Just took 6 days off so hopefully that will do the trick for my nonfunctional legs. Going to be getting up to higher mileage during indoor, if I can start feeling good again I will be very happy to leave to this 50 mile weeks and 5 mile runs behind, finally glad to do some real training.

Basically the focus right now is run a sub 15 5k by the end of February, preferably a 14:50. The UNH track schedule got released and after talking to coach, unfortunately I will not get to race at the fast and highly competitive invites at BU. That means I'm going to be racing at a lot of slow tracks without much competition, just like high school. I had big goals for a variety of distances but with such limited opportunities for fast races, I think it's more realistic to focus on one event. I wanted to run a low 8:30s 3K originally, not sure if that'll happen now. I'm basically going to slog through a bunch of crappy meets a few times in December and January (racing is kept in low quantities due to winter break) then the two target races will be New Englands at Reggie Lewis and America East at BU. The good thing is they are both multi day events so I may or may not get an opportunity at another distance.

As offseason racing, I don't know yet. I know the smart thing would be to get a solid month of training without killing myself in any races. I really wanted to run little Rhody, try to go for the CR in what will probably be a very competitive field this year (assuming the rumored top guys show up) but I'm being more cautious now after that disaster of a season. I'll see when the time comes. I'm probably out for any thanksgiving races though, road races will take a lot more out of me than trail.  Maybe a 5k would work. I'd really like to run some of the BU mini meets (12/8, 12/15, 12/22, I could make the last two and definitely the third one) but I'll have to see what my coach says. Hopefully it will be good indoor season. Let me know whether you think it's a good idea or not to run Little Rhody (or a road race).

My mileage chart for the season (I'm not going to do a full recap for this one). I took out doubles because I only doubled the first week and the last week doesn't really count because I only ran once. 452 miles for 9 weeks= 50 miles average per week. Not great- average was 58 in summer.

My Complicated Relationship with Cross Country

After putting up what is by far my worst season of running to date, my Cross Country career is exactly where I left it at the end of last year- the graveyard. I had killed off my high school turn at the sport with a string of mediocre performances culminating in the two worst races of my life. While incredibly depressed at the time, I was glad to move on to the track a few months later, knowing I'd have an opportunity to try again in the sport come fall 2018.

Well, fall 2018 has come and gone, at least in terms of my XC season and I somehow find myself in that exact same position. Except unlike last year where I produced a slew of mediocre but at least somewhat respectable performances, my races this year were truly atrocious. I only raced 4 times and had one good race, where the other three were a combination of being embarrassing, pathetic, and soul crushing. While the season was overall much worse than my 2017 season, I'm not quite as upset about it as the stakes were so much higher last year. But I am left scratching my head at why I'm so bad at cross country. I refuse to believe that I'm simply a terrible cross country runner and I don't belong out there, but there isn't much hard evidence in performances to back me up otherwise.

I once again am looking forward to track season and quite happy to say good riddance to another horrendous XC season. I'd be lying if I said that I accomplished everything I wanted to on the track in high school, but my Cross Country disappointments exceed my track ones by some margin. Over the last three years, I've run much more consistently out on the track, rarely ever bombing extremely important races the way I have time and again in XC. The idea of running laps around an oval is much more boring on paper, but having a place to run fast without any additional barriers (hills, terrain changes) over a variety of distances seems to be more of my strength. I should like cross country much more than I do, but I find it significantly harder to maintain a race pace after starts that demand an incredibly fast first 800m and over much slower terrain including hills. That doesn't exactly explain why I run horrible in XC but not in track, as I have put in a decent amount of great XC performances as well.

A common question in the world of HS running is Track or XC? Which one is better? Cross Country used to be the easy answer for me, but after putting up these kinds of races, I lose almost all interest in the sport. I then get through track without any of these disappointing races, so right now, track is highly enjoyable to me and cross country is not.

So what is my relationship with Cross Country? I used to have a strong XC experience, where like track/road racing, if I put in the work, I'd get good races out. After a tough end to my 2016 season, I figured these were just anomalies in a mostly great XC career. But after a disappointing 2017 XC season that just simply didn't have those good performance like before, my career wasn't looking too great. And now, after my worst season yet, it's a pretty even split between good seasons and bad ones, almost leaning towards the bad side.

It's incredibly depressing to continually go through this. I long to be good at Cross Country again, but I don't know when that will happen. It'll be nice to have almost 10 months to recover from the disappointment of this season. With three seasons left, I'm hoping next year will be a return to form.

Weekly Log: October 8 to 14

Trying to back in regular training, but still struggling.

Monday: 8 Miles

Short rose with a pretty big group. Spenser and Aidan were tacking on a little extra and I wanted to do a little more, so I hung with them. Unfortunately, Aidan had plans to run pretty fast and I wasn't really planning on that. Banged two uncomfortably fast miles until I decided that it was simply too much and ran solo easy for the remainder.

Tuesday: 6 Miles

Mini-workout with some of the recovering/injured guys. 3 Mile fartlek, 200m on/200m off w/target splits of 40s/50s. It wasn't too hard but it was hot out and I felt pretty tired so none of it was enjoyable. Ons felt pretty relaxed for a workout, offs felt pretty fast for recovery. Difficulty: 2/5.

Wednesday: 6 Miles

Another short workout, this time just with Jamie. 4x1000 @3:10 w/400m jog recovery. Should've been pretty easy, but struggled quite a bit. Felt pretty terrible and was totally dying out there. Just had no energy. Jamie finally dropped on the third one, then I was all done in my first ever incomplete workout. Super discouraging, might be the end of me. Difficulty: 5/5

Thursday: 6 Miles

Had a much better day, 6 miles homecoming loop in the rain with the mid-distance guys (I guess train with mid distance group now because of my leg problems). We went way too fast and I eventually backed off with Nate, but I felt really smooth the whole time at 6:30 pace. Rain felt nice.

Friday: 9 Miles

Pudding hill loop with a huge group, probably 20 guys. I think some split off but still a lot of people. Got extremely tight in my calves for the second mile but fortunately that eventually let up and went to on/off tightness. Mad dash for the town line, which I got but took way too much effort. Probably going to stop going for these. I got tight after that for a little but felt smooth the last mile or so. Okayish run, felt great for half of it, felt terrible for half.

Saturday: 10 Miles

Rockingham recreational rail trail, which goes 28 miles from Newfields to Manchester. We ran about 4 miles of it, incorporating a time interval (they called it a fartlek, but it wasn't really). On sessions were: 1 min/2min/3min/10min/3min/2min/1min with equal rest except for the 10 min which got 3min rest. Was feeling really good on the warm-ups, so I wasn't thrilled that my thighs got insanely heavy once we started to go. Calves never got at all though which was good. It was uncomfortable pushing through such heaviness, but everything else felt great. 1-3 mins were solid but the 10 minute was a bit harder as my quads/hamstrings only increased tension. Difficulty: 3/5. I imagine this would have been pretty easy had I not been so heavy/tight. We went in groups of 4-5, I was with Jamie, James and Andrew. Jamie got mad at me for leading for some reason so I had tuck in the back for some.

Sunday: 7 Miles

Supposed to go to mine falls park for a little meet preview (America East on 10/27 will be held there), but it ended up not working out and we just had late practice in the usual spot. Got put with the mid-distance guys again, looking to go pretty slow for recovery. Felt good for 3 miles cruising along at low 7s but out of nowhere, the guys in the front starting running 6:20s and my legs went to trash after that. Eventually they dropped me for good, which was actually nice as I was finally able to step back and run the pace I wanted (low 7s). Homecoming loop, tacked on woods loop solo. Not bad, but not good either. Definitely hoping to take it easy/feel fresh next week.

Weekly Total: 52 Miles
YTD Total: 1,696 Miles

Weekly Highlight: It felt good to feel normal again on Thursday's rainy run. Definitely not a great week overall, but I feel like things are (very slowly) improving.

Weekly Lowlight: Despite some slight improvement, my track workouts were simply atrocious this week when they should have been easy. It's hard to tell whether my fitness is there or not, but it sure didn't feel like it in those. The rail trail workout was much better in terms of comfort level, but that was the heaviest my legs were all week and it was extremely disruptive during the actual run. While the other runs were awful, they weren't very good either. To sum things up, I'm still seriously struggling to do basic runs and it doesn't bode well for racing next Friday.

I know if I don't break 15:30 at the CCSU mini meet, I'm going to walk away devastated. And unfortunately, it feels like the odds are stacked against me right now. Even worse, there's a good chance I'll be in the JV race as my performances have been far too slow this season to put me in the real top 7. We'll see how next week goes, hoping to finally feel like my normal self again, but if it doesn't, this may very well be the end of the season. I really don't have interest in running another 8K if it's going to be over 26 minutes.

Weekly Log: October 1 to 7

Glad to get back to more normal levels of muscle fatigue, but unfortunately not 100% normal. Taking it easy to get my legs back before my first real race in over a month on Saturday.

Monday: 3 Miles

Coach had me take a super short/easy day that consisted solely of a woods loop and a 2-mile loop in college woods. Felt really fresh on the first one, slightly tighter but not too bad on the second one. Ran pretty slow and felt relaxed. Raining out; kept warm-ups on as I wasn't going fast or long.

Tuesday: 5 Miles

Ran Garrity, once again in the rain. It was pretty cold and I wasn't feeling great on my way over to the field house, so I wasn't looking forward to this one. Definitely was nervous about going back out onto the roads again. Solo, but went by quickly and felt surprisingly very comfortable. Best run in a while, but I'd have to wait and see how the workout would go.

Wednesday: 12 Miles

Pretty decent workout. It sure wasn't easy, but I was just glad to get done. After a 4 mile warm-up, we did 5x150m strides on a dirt road section of the XC field. Followed that up with a pretty tough track session: 3x(800/400/200/1000), 4 mins between sets, 200m jog between reps. Target splits were: 2:30/70/33/3:10. Actual splits: 2:24/74/34/3:12/2:28/71/33/3:08/2:27/69/34/3:01. First one felt okay, got really weak towards the end of the second set and was holding on for dear life in the third one. Got it done though, pretty happy with the result. Difficulty: 5/5

Thursday: 8 Miles

Reserve homecoming loop plus warm-ups. Varying levels of being comfortable, but generally the calves were uncomfortably tight again and it made the run far from enjoyable.

Friday: 7 Miles

Short rose pre-meet shakeout. Tried really hard to go as easy as possible to feel fresh in Saturday's race. I was happy that I felt pretty good. There was some lingering tightness here or there but for the most part, I felt ready to go.

Saturday: 9 Miles

New England Championships. Shooting for 25:40, ran 26:54. Wow. Simply unbelievable. Was feeling optimistic the entire week and race day but then this happened. Not going to bother with a recap on this one, this was one of the most disappointing races of the year and brought my rollercoaster of a season to a crashing halt once again.

Sunday: 6 Miles

Woke up feeling more sore than I have in quite a while. Legs were just plain messed up- a combination of tightness, heaviness and the soreness but it also felt kinda nice. Got my first town line as well.

Weekly Total: 50 Miles
YTD Total: 1,644 Miles

Weekly Highlight: Not sure what to say on this one. Writing this a week later, I'm feeling worse than ever and not sure I can salvage much of this season. It felt nice to at least think I was getting back to normal running, though. Not sure what will end up happening, just not feeling great about my immediate future right now.

Weekly Lowlight: Still in a major struggle, confirmed in the worst way by my terrible New Englands. Definitely hurts to walk away with a 26:54.

More Problems- Weekly Log: September 24 to 30

Thought this would be my comeback week, but heavy and extremely tight legs derailed my progress to the point where I wouldn't race. Definitely very disappointing, was questioning if my season was over.

Monday: 7 Miles

Went on a new route with 6 or so guys called Chain and Back. I was disappointed the trail were so wide they might well be dirt roads, but on the way back we took a detour for a twisty single-track with stuff to jump over. Actually felt good on this run and definitely enjoyed it.

Tuesday: 6 Miles

Missed practice as usual on Tuesday and did a solo short rose (5ish) plus two laps around the oyster river HS track. It was raining out pretty good but I enjoyed it. My watch did not; I skipped loading satellites after several minutes of waiting and the pace was off the entire run. On and off tightness this run, but overall uncomfortable.

Wednesday: 6 Miles

This was the run that ended me (temporarily). 3xMile workout @5:10 w/90s recovery. Should be really easy, but legs (both calves and quads) got so tight/heavy just 200m into each rep. Legs were like structures of cement that took so much extra effort to move that normal. Difficulty: 5/5. Tightness: 9/10

Thursday: 9 Miles

Warm-up plus Jenkins loop. I was tight going up it didn't feel too bad and otherwise I felt great. 3 miles in I completely seized up in my calves and I was so tight it was borderline painful. Tightness: 9/10.

Friday: 5 Miles

Ran the paul short course with the team. Somehow even tighter than the previous day, it probably was painful. So tight I had trouble keeping up at 6:50s pace and would have to push to stay with the group on the hills. The worst tightness I've ever had in my life. Tightness: 10/10.

Saturday: 2 Miles

Did the warm-up with the team and was still ridiculously tight, so that was it for my running for the day.

Sunday: 0 Miles

Did 6 Miles on the elliptigo which was a combination of fun, uncontrolled and tiring.

Weekly Total: 34 Miles
YTD Total: 1,594 Miles

Weekly Highlight: Seems like the foot pretty much healed up.

Weekly Lowlight: Just extremely uncomfortable tightness nearly all the time.

(Horrible) 8K Debut- Coast to Coast Battle in Beantown

One of the changes for blogging I've made this year is to try to write separate race reports for my collegiate races rather than incorporating write-ups into my weekly log (less racing, easier to do write ups). I told myself I wouldn't for my 8K debut because of how bad my race went, but I'm deciding to anyways. Normally, I don't do much of a recap for really bad races because I'm so disappointed/upset that any reminder of a race is somewhat painful to think about and writing about it brings me right back into that anger and frustration. However, this race was a little different. There were multiple reasons I ran terrible that were more acceptable excuses than usual and certain conditions of the race that make this not such a loss after all. Those reasons are...

1. Injury Recovery- Technically, I didn't race injured as I had zero pain during the race, but the fact that I didn't know for certain that I was racing until race day does lower expectations a bit. This was my first hard effort since hurting my foot and taking four days off while missing two workouts had certainly tampered with how I had felt over the last few days. I also wasn't 100% certain that my foot wouldn't suddenly flare up in pain mid-race, so it's definitely a good thing that didn't happen.

2. Trashed Legs- This is somewhat a result of #1, but as I stated in my weekly log, my legs had felt terrible leading up to the race and I was seriously worried this would affect me race day. And it sure did. I felt totally flat the whole time, my legs were 100% stiff and unresponsive. This combined with complete lack of strength gave me no mental drive to push past people. I've felt like this before, although rarely, and this is pretty much exactly how I feel when I run the worst races of a season.

3. Racing Flats- Another result of #1, but as a condition of letting me race, my Coach said no spikes. I'm guessing this is due to the lack of support and tightness it has to them; it's better not to risk worsening my injury than get optimal race conditions. I did however, get permission to race in flats, of which I only had road versions. I had no traction in the woods sections of the course (made up for at least 2 miles) and that definitely further contributed to my lack of response/overall slowness.

4. Insane Competition- I know I'm whining a little now as most of you are likely thinking "Competition makes a race much faster". I know it does and having great competition usually fuels awesome times. However, there is such a thing as too much competition. Sometimes in huge races I get overwhelmed with the amount of fast people and drop back. With just over 200 guys in the race, I was immediately in a congested crowd for the entire first mile with one of the worst starts I've ever run in. Everyone was pushing each other and my natural response was wanting to drop back to get some room, even though the intelligent thing to do is push forwards for more room. The second part of this besides being overwhelming is the sheer discouragement. In a field of 209, I only beat 6 people. It's extremely discouraging to see the majority of the field well ahead of you with very few behind. I've only finished in the bottom 20% in one other race (Loucks Games 3200, 26th of 29) and I finished in the bottom 3% this time around. This was something I was not prepared for, but played with me mentally in a bad way.

5. Lack of Pressure/Importance- This is not a reason for me doing poorly, but the reason for why I'm not that upset about it. Even though in terms of execution and overall pace/place vs.expectations this is one of the worst races I've ever run, it was virtually meaningless. I've felt similarly and run terrible at some very important HS meets but as a newbie to the college scene coming off an injury, it just isn't that big of a deal to bomb this race. After some initial massive disappointment, a lot of guys reminded of this, which is why unlike other bad races in the past, I have little problem brushing this to the side.

I know this is an odd recap, but with a big failure unlike most other races, but one that I'm okay talking about, it seemed more important to reflect on what went wrong and why it went wrong that just complaining and groaning. I will be back to normal chronological recaps in the future, however. Here's a quick recap though:

Brief Recap: Arrived at Franklin park around 1:30, giving plenty of time to relax. I was amazed at he quality of the runners around me and it was very cool to see some of the best teams and runners in the country. I had hydrated very well, but was worried about eating. Normally, I pack or eat a huge meal from home, but I didn't have much food up here. I ate a healthy but not super filling breakfast of oatmeal and half a bagel. I didn't have time for lunch after class and was hoping the provided lunch would do fine. I was unpleasantly surprised to find that it merely consisted of a bag of chips, a cookie and a turkey wrap. The wrap was great but barely filled me, whereas I wouldn't touch the other two unhealthy foods prior to my race. I had two cliff bars, but this was not an ideal pre-race meal (probably another reason for my failure) and was worried about this. After the warm-up and dynamics, I put on my flats opting not to tie them in the same manner as before for more optimal flow, comfort and responsiveness. Of course, this lacked the benefits of the other tying method and could potentially mess up my foot. After some strides, my foot was hurting a little and I wasn't confident in the race at all. I felt good though, at least at that point.

As I stated before, the start was truly horrendous. So many quality runners converging as once instantly pushed me to the back of the pack. I nearly fell on a slight incline because I wasn't expecting it as I saw nothing but a sea of runners ahead. I ran in this horrible congestion for about a mile. I wasn't tired but my legs felt like total trash and had zero interest in picking up. The pace felt so fast. I hit the mile in 5:06, about what I wanted but knowing since that had felt really fast, I wasn't going to maintain. For our team, I was towards the back but ahead of the slower group. Everything went to shit in the second mile as I lost all my drive to stay in the race, my energy levels faded to zero, my legs filled up with cement and despite being way in the back, the remaining sea of runners passed me until I was in nearly last (unknown to me at the time) including all my teammates. I hit the two mile just under 10:40, knowing it was all over. The rest of the race was a blurred state of fatigue. I ran around the course with zero of my regular race tactics, completely out of the race. It was like I was running an easy tempo in the back but the unfortunate truth was that this was my all-out race effort. I literally had nothing after 2 miles. Passed through 5k in an atrocious 17:06. I slowly gained on Phil and eventually passed him. This felt like 9 minute pace yet I was so dead I couldn't do anything about it. My other teammate, Dylan wasn't far off in the distance but I certainly wasn't gaining on him. I knew I was running terrible and was surprised people were still cheering for me. I half expected some of them to completely disown any association with me and for coach to kick me off the team. I ran so slow up bear cage hill. It wasn't long at all or that difficult, but since I had nothing, it was like a mountain. People effortlessly gained on me and blew by me. I finally rounded the final turn. Ever since I passed Phil, I was expecting him to go by me again at any point, but it never happened. My finish was absolutely pathetic and I was barely even glad to be done since I had done so bad. I was honestly expecting the clock to show high 28s based on my second mile but was surprised to see 27. For some reason, I thought I had run 27:10 yet had actually run 27:31. Probably because I was completely unfocused at that point.

27:31 is horrible, especially considering my 15:44 5K and 55:30 10 Mile. But after some encouragement and some further thought, I realized it wasn't the end of the world. It's certainly embarrassing but when I bring all the reasons above together, I don't feel so bad about it. I didn't get kicked off the team and my foot seems to be near full recovery. I have another opportunity next Saturday and will certainly be looking to actually run fast. Until the next race...

Recovery, 8K Debut, and Return to RI- Weekly Log: September 17 to 23

This week was very interesting as it varied greatly. Fortunately, I started to run again after 4 days off for recovery. Easy at first, then a race on Friday in Boston at Franklin Park before getting in a few runs in RI (for the first time in a month) for a pretty short return.

Monday: 1 Mile

Continuing with the trend of solely doing the warm-up. My foot weirdly felt worse than yesterday for running, but better for walking. It wasn't clear if I was supposed to bike again, but after coach mysteriously disappeared, I decided not to give myself the boredom and discomfort of getting on the bike. Plus my butt was pretty sore from doing that the last few days.

Tuesday: 6 Miles

First run in 5 days! Foot felt mostly pretty great walking around and coach gave me the okay to go for a run. I didn't do the workout as it was my first day back but went with another group (Nick and Ryan) who are also somewhat injured, but in worse overall condition than I am. Run wasn't the greatest- I had to bang out a 6:14 first mile to catch them which felt super fast and tiring. Legs were so heavy, so most of the run was pretty uncomfortable. Foot felt okay- not good nor bad but definitely uncomfortable at times which was a little worrying. Never hurt though, which I felt was a sign I can continue running. Strides after, felt decent but slow.

Wednesday: 8 Miles

After my warm-up, the girl's coach tied my shoelaces in a different pattern so there weren't laces going over the sore/injured area of my foot. This seemed weird to me and certainly gives the shoe an overall odd tightness in different places, but helped my injury out a ton. I was feeling some discomfort on the warm-up, but it was pretty much gone after the shoe change.

Another easy day with guys recovering from yesterday's workout. Started out slow. I felt good and wanted to pick it up so when one of the guys (Mike) started to, I went with him. No idea what Mike was doing nor why he was doing it (he also was recovering from the workout), but we hit a 6:01 mile followed by a 5:35 which was completely unexpected. My legs got really heavy again and uncomfortable but I saw the run through at that pace. We did this diagonal strides on the field later with 5 mins continuous running, striding the length of the field diagonally, recovering on the width of the field. Got tired towards the end.  Felt like I had made a mistake as my foot was bothering me significantly more than usual later than night.

Thursday: 8 Miles

Was really worried I had messed things up and would wake up with a burning pain and have to start taking time off again, so was thrilled that my foot felt more or less the same as the last few days. Warm-up was fine then we went for our shakeout run. My right calf was so tight it was borderline painful and it didn't help that this group thought 6:28 pace was a good pre-race run. I wanted to slow but didn't want to leave the group and I remained there. Of course, I later learned a bunch of guys in our group dropped off and took it easy for the rest of the run but since I was in the front, I didn't see them. More diagonal strides, taking my shoes off relieved the unbearable calf pressure somewhat but my quads were insanely heavy. My legs were feeling so trash, I was seriously considering asking Coach not to race me tomorrow. Of course, there was the chance that I wake up in the morning feeling great and ready to go, so I kept it to myself. Got rolled out after by Athletic trainers where the pressure they put on my calves definitely hurt a lot but also felt relieving/good. My calves were feeling less tight after but more beat up. Was definitely worried about racing the next day.

Friday: 10 Miles

Battle in Beantown, ran absolutely horrible. I told myself I wouldn't write a separate post for this, but I will. Likely shorter than usual, however.

Saturday: 8 Miles

Back in RI! Went up to Goddard park to watch various people race in the Ocean State XC Invitational, a meet I raced in all 4 years of my high school career. Dad and Tom ran in the open race at 8am, my former Westerly teammates ran at 10 and 11, whereas some really top athletes were in the championships races at 12 and 12:30, including Katelyn Tuohy running the fastest HS XC 5K of all time in 16:06.87, beating all but one boy. Did a mile or so before stopping to watch the open race, ran the rest of it with Tom, Shara and Dad with Dad running the rest of the it with me, Tom and Shara only running a mile or so. Nice and easy, felt like quality recovery. Ran pretty much all the trails, all wide, soft double-track. Foot started to bother me towards the end and walking throughout the day, likely because I raced on it.

Sunday: 8 Miles

WTAC group run in Woody Hill, a mix of Bradford preserve and other trails. Pretty fun- I felt surprisingly good despite being sleep-deprived throughout the weekend (I'm still pretty tired/weak when writing this) and fueless until the last two miles. Dad, Chris and Tom. Foot felt 100% so that was good. Had to leave for UNH pretty much immediately after getting back.

Weekly Total: 49 Miles
YTD Total: 1,560 Miles

Weekly Highlight: Really nice to get back into regular training and (mostly) beat this stupid minor foot problem. 49 miles isn't a ton but so much better than 0 or last weeks' 34.

Weekly Lowlight: The foot pain was still there from time to time and it's not a good feeling being scared to run. Fortunately, this wasn't a huge problem but for a few times, I thought I was back to more zeros. Obviously, the big failure was my race but for various reasons, I actually think the brief moments of pain, frustration and fear were much more of a low point this week than my awful race.