Track and Field: Not for the Faint of Heart

Alright, well, I probably could have predicted that a post like this would be written at some point. It's the first official roar on the Rant and Roar Running blog. This will be no surprise to my fellow teammates and other track and field athletes. Most track athletes have experienced this scenario at some point.

So, in latest news, I ran the 1500 at Occidental College in LA.  I feel like I raced pretty well, I was 4th, but the time of 4:15 was not great. Unfortunately, I got put in the slowest of 3 sections. This was probably due to having a PB from 2 years ago and having an off year last year, so it makes it much more difficult to get into fast sections of meets. Basically, you're only as good as your last race.... and when you can't get into a fast section to run a fast race, this makes things extremely difficult. It's pretty tough to run fast by yourself out front or in slower races where you get dialed into a slow pace and are stuck behind people running slower than what your ideal pace should be.

On a similar vein, I tried to run fast tonight at the Tempe High Performance Meet in Tempe, Arizona. I was feeling great and thought that I could give it a shot on my own. Although I was on pace at 800, I was thrown off pace due to a pacemaker that was slowing down considerably. I was way off goal pace with 400 to go so I decided to just finish strong. I won it in 4:16.

The crappy thing about this sport is that you can have the best practices in the world, Olympic calibre, but if you can't post an official time, you can't get into highly competitive races. With so few races available, it's no wonder that distance runners have such a tough time making major teams.

Anyway, I'm not giving up yet, I've got a few more shots. But it helps to get the roar out.

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Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight.

Got to kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight.

(Bruce Cockburn, Lovers in a Dangerous Time).

Red Track, Blue Track, Why You Give Me Track Hack?

So, this first week at altitude camp has been tough, to say the least. I don't think I've ever trained this hard before. It's a good thing I'm not working or expected to do anything productive right now because my boss would not be a happy camper. When I'm not sleeping, training, or eating, all I'm thinking about is sleeping, training, or eating... oh yeah, and, racing, of course.

Post track workout routine basically consists of stumbling like a Zombie into the car, then into the apartment, making food, eating food while focusing only on putting fork into mouth despite the fact that TV may be on or husband may be talking to you (Sorry, Jon), and then, while last forkfull of food is still being chewed, stumbling into the bedroom and slamming head onto pillow. Goodnight! (or Afternoon, as the case may be).  After 1.5 - 2 hour naps, I am still able to go to bed easily and get a minimum of 9 hours of sleep, no problem.

Despite my excessively long sleeps, workouts are going fantastically, even though we're at 7,000 FT. The only complaint I have is that it's so dry up here and, obviously, my respiratory system is under a lot of stress, that I keep getting track hack after every workout. Usually, I only get this after races, but I guess that's altitude for ya.

It's not hard to appreciate the beauty of this place. On Saturday, we went to Sedona for our track workout: hard to beat the view from that track! Red rocks, blue sky- oh my! It's a little lower altitude than Flagstaff, at 4,500 FT. but, honestly, I didn't notice a difference, still feels like sucking air through a straw.

Only one more week to go. Can't wait to race at Occidental College, Pasadena, CA next Friday!

Decisions, Decisions...

It's been awhile since my last post... My normally compliant body has been causing me some issues these last couple of weeks... As  many of you probably know, the original plan for racing was to do Stanford on April 29th, however, I came down with a stomach virus just over two weeks ago and then just as I was starting to feel better, my quad started to act up and I wasn't able to run at all for a few days. So, since I had not finished a workout in 2 weeks, I made the decision not to race. It was pretty disappointing but I know there are more chances to run fast coming up in a few weeks. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) all of my flights/accommodations were booked to go to Stanford, so at least I got the chance to watch some excellent track and field!

Today is my first day at altitude camp in Flagstaff, Arizona. Although I have not done a run yet (just about to leave for the first one in about 30 minutes) I already love it here, it's such a relief from Phoenix where it has been unseasonably warm for this time of year! The weekend before last in Phoenix, it was so hot (over 100 degrees fahrenheit) that we actually did our long runs on the treadmill! Also, there's lots of trees and grass here in Flagstaff and it's only 66 degrees so far today, the crisp air kinda reminds me of Newfoundland.

I'll try to give updates of how the camp is going. I haven't really noticed much difference in how I am feeling yet but I'll probably notice it on my run. Look forward to it!