Sunday, June 23, 2013

June 23 to 29, 2013 -- Blogging It Up Again

After about a 6 month break, I have decided to try and get my blog going again. It is hard to find the time to blog it up and such during the track seasons. We'll see if I can stick with it for a while at least. It is nice for me to have some written log of my training.

Summary of my racing (or lack thereof) this spring:

I didn't really concentrate on racing or training much this spring. Ran/paced a couple 5Ks and 3K Steeples here and there. After MSU's track season, I did decide to run a 3K Steeplechase at the Portland Track Festival. I wasn't really all that prepared to race, even though I had managed to gain some level of fitness with my training. My biggest area of unpreparedness was that I hadn't really done any hurdle training. This caused me to not be very confident in the race. So, I started pretty slow and worked my way up. I ended up running 8:39 while really struggling over the barriers and water pit. The time was under the qualifying standard for the US Track Championships, so it wasn't all bad.

Here is a video of the race:


Watch more video of Portland Track Festival 2013 on flotrack.org

Even though I qualified for the US Track Champs, I decided not to go and compete. The reasons were time away from home, cost of travel, was busy with some late recruiting, and a general feeling of not being totally prepared. I don't regret not going because I don't like the travel, especially when it is by myself and it would have been a 5 day trip. It did look like the steeple was not as strong this year though (as is the case with almost every event after an Olympic Year) so I may have been able to place pretty well.

Once I decided not to do USAs, I took a lot of days off. It was funny after taking 4 days off, I agreed to do a workout with Dan Jackson. I wasn't feeling great after taking so many days off, but wanted to give Dan some company. I did some 200s then a 800 in 1:59 and a 600 in 1:30, but wasn't really into doing the workout so I just did some 200s and called it good. It was just hard to be motivated. The only other day I ran last week was when I did a 30 minute tempo with Dan averaging about 5:15 per mile. It was a weird week with so many days off, but still two workouts.

If training goes well, I am gonna try and get into the Montana Mile and see what I can do there.

Looking to be more consistent this week.

Sunday (June 23rd)
Long Run with Dan Jackson up South Cottonwood, 15 to 16 miles.

Monday