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So I’ve been saying that I’ll be racing this weekend at the Penn national meet, but there have been a change in plans.  After the performance list came out I was placed in the open division instead of the invitational division.  My time was faster than the girls in the open and also faster than some of the girls in the invitational division. Being extremely unhappy with my placement, I am now racing at the Indiana University Relays! You can find the live updates on IU’s track and field website. 

So i ran my first 800 of the season this past Saturday at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Oh and HOLY SMOKES talk about nice facility!! It reminds me a lot of Akron except the track is 8 lanes around, 10 lanes down the straight, and the facility in itself is just huge and extremely impressive!  Loved the track.  

The race.. so I ended up winning and I ran an all-time indoor PR.. almost a complete all-time PR.  My official time was a 2:11.09.  I realized something I never noticed last year — running an 800 all by yourself is extremely hard to do.  I think last year all 800’s sucked for me, so I just never payed attention to it.  I was feeling great through 500, but then from 500-650 I couldn’t make myself go faster until I saw the time on the clock.  Next weekend I’m hoping to race at the Penn State National meet (which I was told is on tv?) and will definitely have much better competition to help me through the middle/end of the race.

Congrats to Angelique Cunningham (my old 800m training partner turned back sprinter from AU) for placing second and SMASHING her old 800m PR!! 

Here’s a link to the results page: http://www.tfrrs.org/results/23167_1438838.html

so WOWZERS! i FINALLY ran in my first race and had something significant to update!! 

I ran the 1,000 at Kent State University yesterday afternoon.  While my time wasn’t what i was hoping for, the way that I ran the race was extremely encouraging!  My total time was 3:02, and i won the race, but I negative split the 1k… meaning my last 500 meters were faster than my first 500 meters!  I was racing against a girl who has run a 2:06 in the 800 and a 54.08 in the 400 which are both faster than my PR’s in each respective event, so I thought she was going to take off lights out!  I sat on her hip for the first 500m, but after going through the 400 10 seconds slower than I was hoping I decided to take the lead for the remainder of the race!  Coach Mack said that his athlete who ran a 2:08 in the 800 ran a 3:01 in the 1k all out on her best day and I just ran a 3:02 like it was a workout and crossed the finish line feeling like I hadn’t even run a race!  So the day was overall extremely encouraging!

On another GREAT note, the AU men’s 4x400m relay team AUTOMATICALLY QUALIFIED for nationals running THE FASTEST time in the nations for all divisions!!!!!!!!!!! 3:11.00… again.. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was by far the most exciting race of the day. hats off to jacob cook, keith cleveland, drew windle, and cory lamar!

5 weeks of solid training now before my next race.  I’ll be able to post my entire schedule in the next few weeks - i’ll be sitting down with Coach Mack soon to figure out what the best races for me to run in are! 

Big thanks to Doug of the Ashland Times Gazette for stopping in last night to talk with Kurt, Abby and myself!  Love the Ashland community and all the support that they give to us!

SO! I talked with Coach Mack today and we were talking about the rest of my cross season leading into my track season.  I’ve got one more 5k left this weekend at Pittsburgh then my base season is almost over!! after pitt i’ll have a week of down-time (not completely off, just reduced mileage) and then i’ll start gearing up for track season.  In a few weeks I get to run a timed 600 with the sprinters and then before I know it it’ll be the first track meet at Kent State!  woohoo! :)

“What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?”

So typically Sunday’s are the day of the week where I get to run my long run; I wouldn’t say that I’m always thrilled about it.  Sometimes it goes well while other times it’s a complete disaster.  This Sunday was a little different.  Instead of going for my 8-miler, I got to spike up and visit the track for a few 300’s.  They were SUPPOSED to be around 800m race pace at a good effort, but not all out.  Me and another male 800m runner on the team were using this as a confidence builder and to give us a little reminder of why we’re putting in the mileage and aerobic training that we’ve been doing week after week.  Coach Mack was hoping it didn’t backfire from the tough week of practice we had this past week! 

Building confidence is exactly what it did! With a 50m build leading into the 300, Coach Mack timed my first one at 44, and my second at 47… and if I can finish an 800 like that then holy smokes.. I’ll be flying!  The effort on my first one was maybe a little too strong for what the goal was for the day, but it was nice to run fast again!  

With another weekend off this coming weekend I’ll get another solid week of training under my belt before I get ready for my last two cross meets.  Then it’s finally time to start race-specific stuff for track after months of base work! Hallelujah! :)

So my second 5k of the season went WAY better than the first!  I still wasn’t allowed to finish, but my time would’ve been under 20 minutes, which would’ve been over a minute pr from the first course in Dayton!  It was about 20-30 degrees cooler, which was nice!  The course at OWU only had one substantial hill that wasn’t even that bad, and the footing was a little soft from all the rain we had gotten but I’d take it any day!  I actually really liked the course!  Now we’ve got a three week break from meets completely dedicated to training!  Our next race is All-Ohio at Cedarville where I’ll finally be able to finish (YAY)!! 

On another note, our first threelite training session is tonight from 7-9 in the Conard Fieldhouse (located right next to arby’s).  Cost is $30 for 2 hour. Everyone is welcome! :)

So I ran in my first cross country race today and it gave me a whole new appreciation for cross country runners. I, however, will gladly continue to train for the 800! :) I had to stop at the 3 mile marker because unattached athletes weren’t technically supposed to race, so I wasn’t allowed to finish.  It wasn’t AWFUL, but I didn’t run as well as I was hoping!  Thinking about how the weather was right around 95 degrees and that it was my first cross country race ever I guess I can’t be too disappointed, I mean I did reach my two goals: a. finish; b. don’t finish last.  I felt great through the first mile and a half, and then I wanted to kill myself until about a quarter mile to the finish, then I was ok again.  Next week’s will be better, yep, I’m pretty sure of that.