I'm Not Going Down.

Even though all these events have been happening, I am not going to let them break me down. I know that I have to be strong, not only for my Mom, but for myself as well. That being said, I am not going down.

Back into the Swing of Things.

This past week has been horrendous. If I were to classify this past week's events as a hurricane, it would be a Category 5. In the Fujita scale (The scale used for measuring the severity of tornadoes), it would be an F5. This past week has just sucked for a variety of reasons, ones that I am not quite ready to blog about for the world to see.

But as Martin Luther King Jr proclaimed "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Eventually we (My family) have to move on from this terrible ordeal and get back into the swing of things. All of us kids have to go back to our normal routines. For my sister and I, that entails going back to college, trying to get back to our schedules (With classes and our extra-curriculars). My brother is still working up in Seattle and has dropped by every so often to see how we are doing. For my mom....well I don't know if she will ever be "back to normal" after this devastating loss, but I can only hope that she recovers from it.

Shattered.

What one sees in themselves when they are looking into a mirror, in their reflections, are a compilation of their actions and decisions. They choose to wear the clothes they are wearing. The accessories they may have, such as hats, watches, rings, etc is also their discretion. But what they can control is the fact that they are still standing, still looking at themselves. When one makes that choice, to not look at themselves anymore, they are essentially shattering the glass; breaking it up into pieces so fine, that it can never be reconstructed. When someone breaks a mirror, they are often too scared of getting into trouble to clean it themselves, so they'll often leave it alone and wait for someone else to find the shattered glass.

One person's carelessness can lead to a few people's discomfort, because they have to clean up the glass, throw it away, get a new mirror, and get it delivered. People don't realize how much effort goes into making a mirror, or all the people that are involved in the manufacturing process. There could be hundreds of people involved, trying to put out the best product they can, but when all is said and done, someone broke the mirror for a reason. Shattered.

Hey Guys!!!

So I know I haven't posted in a while, but some crazy things have been going down! I feel like this year is going to be something special. Over the past two weeks, we (As teammates) have bonded like peanut butter and jelly (Except for Jon; he is just jelly). I don't think that I would trade this set of teammates for anything else. As the band All Time Low says,

"Maybe it's not my weekend, but it's gonna be my year..."

Manergy!!!

Today is the first race of our collegiate season, a local invite that is our "home course." Its only a 6k (Normally collegiate men race 8k/10k). The course is a little slow due to some longer grass, but hey, let's do it guys!!! Manergy!

Steamrollers and Nightcrawlers.

Raise your hands if you have NEVER been camping before??? When that question was echoed throughout our campsite, my hand was the only one to go up. In my defense, I grew up with a mom who would work three to four twelve hour shifts a week and a step-dad who either worked from home or had to drive to Kirkland to go into his office. Needless to say, I was laughed at when my hand rose.

Every year our cross-country team goes on a short camping trip (two to three days). This year we went up to White Pass (Elevation: 4500 feet), which was about an hour and fifteen minute drive from school. Nothing too far. We were scheduled to leave at ten, but with Kevin's impeccable punctualness, we didn't even leave until 11:11 (Maybe that was a sign of good things to come). Turns out it was.

I was told by some of the upperclassman that the previous year was like hell on earth. It was sunny one day, but the following day a deluge engulfed their campsite. They (Everyone who went, as well as all of their belongings) were drenched. Yet they all came back to potentially endure another two nights of hell. When we arrived at our campsite, we quickly unpacked and got everything settled. The girls shared three tents, while the majority of the guys (Eight of us) all fit into one tent. This tent was HUGE! We fit eight guys and still had enough room to steamroll and nightcrawl.

On our second day, we did a hard workout up at the summit of the pass (Where an annual summer high-school XC camp is held). The workout consisted of:

1.5 mile WM
6:00 min Tempo
4 x (3:00 hard, 2:00 easy)
1 mile recovery jog
4 x 400m w/ 200m jog recovery
1.5 mile CD

It was a tough workout. The elevation was definitely played a factor, not to mention the terrain. Speaking of tough terrain, during one of the "3:00 hard" intervals one of our top guys fell going around a corner and sprained his ankle. His ankle swelled up to the size of a tennis ball in a matter of seconds. We helped him along the trails until Kevin met up with us with his bike. He was able to get back to the vans and get some ice bags on his ankle, but for the rest of us, we still had to finish the workout. After the fartlek intervals, we jogged back to the vans to grab some water and meet up with Bryan to start the 400's. They were on a relatively flat area along the lake, which was a lot easier than the rolling trails we traversed during our tempo and fartlek intervals.

After the quarters, we did a nice cooldown by the ski lifts and piled back up into the vans. All of us were exhausted from that workout and just took it easy the rest of the afternoon. We played several games of Spoons (Scott is the Spoons Champion of the World as he won six straight games) and Egyptian Ratscrew (No real winner lol.) That afternoon we had two people (Connie and Jon) swim 300m in glacial run-off water to a random island. Mind you, the water was probably about 40 degrees (Pretty f***ing cold). Everyone else, including Kevin, just watched them, making sure that they made it to the island (And more importantly back to shore) without too many leeches on them (Four people got bitten by leeches while we were swimming in the river/lake).

So much happened at camp, that it would probably take me a good ten full, in-detail paragraphs for me to correctly explain everything that happened at camp. While it is unfortunate that the people reading this won't know everything that happened, the memories that I will take from the camping trip are irreplaceable. Team dinners, team bonding, late-night fire talks, ice baths, raccoons, no showers, steamrollers and nightcrawlers, rolling logs, and jumping off of rocks. Those are only a handful of memories that occurred during those two days. So now when anyone asks if I have been camping, I can now look curiously around and think back to White Pass.

Is That A Banana In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

After an exhausting night last night (See "The Gorge"), I wasn't really feeling like today was going to be a successful day (workout-wise). None of the guys 100% knew if we were going to have a hard workout today or not. Turns out..... we were.

Today was the day of the 3rd annual Wildcat Stampede Fun Run, a fun run in which the cross-country team hosts and provides assistance to any people willing to run five kilometers around our beautiful campus (hahaha that should have been on the poster). We met up at the Pavilion at 9am, as the race started at 9:30am-ish. We were given a course map and were suppose to select corners, to help guide the runners to make sure that they didn't get lost. The course wasn't that difficult to navigate because it was lined with multi-colored chalk arrows, which helped guide the runners around the "tricky" corners. The winner was the Track/Cross-country coach at the local high school (He ran a 16:45....not bad), beating out one of our alumni runners (He just wanted to crawl back into bed haha). After the race, we did a quick two-mile shakeout run. The run was a prelude for our workout later in the day.

Kevin had told us that the workout was going to be a "moderate-hard" workout. What he actually meant was "Your gonna run hard anyway, but we'll see how you guys are feeling at the moment." The workout he had planned for us was a fartlek-type workout. Swedish for "speed-play," Fartlek workouts utilize a combination of either race-paced (or in our case, tempo paced), intervals, followed by a brief segment of recovery jogging. It's like your standard interval workout, just without the breaks. The workout planned was three sets of 5:00 minutes at Tempo pace, followed by two minutes of easy jogging; nothing brutal, but a good quality effort. I feel like these types of workouts are better than just standard tempo runs because during tempo's, everyone tries to run with each other, yet during these, the paces vary. During the first two intervals, Manu, Scott, and Nate Minor seperated themselves (a little bit), from the main pack, with myself trailing off the pack. By the third interval, everyone was running "their pace." Oh, I didn't mention that we ran our Farltek over the Fun run course, so we could see what the racers were experiencing during their run earlier that morning.

After the Fartlek, we did some hill repeats over at Brick Hill (Our favorite hill during Track season). We did 4 x 200m (Which is to the crest of the hill) with an easy jog recovery back down to the bottom. These weren't "All-out" efforts, just a nice, hard pace to help develop some leg turnover. After four, my legs were feeling pretty tired! The accumulation of the Fartlek, plus the hills, in addition to the prior week's workouts, have been slowly taking their tolls on my body. It's ok though. I feel good now! Just needed to stretch a little bit and get in a nice cooldown. All and all, I had about nine miles on my day.

Later that evening, we all decided that we were going to hangout as a team at one of the older guy's apartments. Not only did we have enough guys to play a small "Three vs. Three" basketball tournament, we also consumed delicious banana-based treats, such as muffins, pies and cakes (We had a lot of leftover bananas from the Fun run and Kevin told us to take them.) The evening was a total success, even without some of the freshman girls (I don't think they like to socialize haha.) We all enjoyed ourselves and, more importantly, enjoyed each other. With the guy's team being comprised mainly of sophomores and juniors, we have just shy of two more years with one another. It's cool that we can all hangout as one big group and just have fun, not only like teammates do, but as normal friends do as well.

The Gorge.

Last night, I was given the opportunity to not only help out our cross-country team by selling alcoholic beverages at The Gorge (To a bunch of middle-aged adults trying to relive their glory days), but also to listen to music for eight hours straight, with the head-lining act being the Dave Matthews Band. Anyone who has been to a concert in the Pacific-Northwest area has most likely been to The Gorge. It is probably the most well-known amphitheater in the Pacific-Northwest (At least in Washington that's for sure.) Not only do they host incredible events, such as Warped Tour, but the backdrop to the stage is literally a cliff (More like the Columbia river, but hey, when your drunk off your a$$, you can't tell which way is up right?) The scenery surrounding the venue is surreal, which makes this place not only stunning on the eyes, but also an amazing venue for music.

Our job, well at least my job, was to help everyone enjoy the concert in the quickest way possible. How do we do that? By giving them beer hahaha. We had seven people (Scott, Matt, Zach, Kailee, Ashlee, and myself serving beers and margaritas from about 1pm to 9pm. We also had soda and water as well, but c'mon, who really gets WATER at a concert? I had been told by Kevin that I wasn't allowed to actually touch any of the alcohol (Because I had not done the training or whatever.) That rule quickly went out the window the moment we had a significant line, which did not take very long. I don't think I have looked at that many ID's, as I did in that eight hour time-gap. One thing that was intriguing was that about 75% of the people we carded, were not from Washington. I saw more Canadian licenses than Washington ones (Heck, I saw more Illinois ones than Oregon ones; I guess people travel REALLY far when they want to see someone perform). We also encounter a few guys from overseas (Two gentlemen from Belgium, one guy from the U.K. and another from Ireland.)

After we were done selling, we got to enjoy the concert for a little bit, while Kevin was stuck making sure that all of our number were semi-correct. We ended up selling over $22,000 dollars worth of merchandise (Holy cow!!!). Being a volunteer group, we received a small portion of the profits (I think it was like 5%), not to mention all of the tips that people generously gave us. By the end of the night, everyone who was working (We had seven people in our booth, and six more working in a Lemonade stand in another area) each received $40 dollars worth of tips. Not to mention it was all in one dollar bills hahaha. Can you say strip club?? jk jk. It was a great experience that I would do again in a heartbeat, although maybe next time, we could stay open a little later, which would mean more tips, and essentially more money.

Time Trial.

Who doesn't love a good race? Ask that question to a bunch of little kids and they'll scream/get excited about the opportunity to race. Ask that same question to me about twelve hours ago and I would have said "Not me." All throughout high school, I never got the true "racer's" mentality. Even now in college, I am still learning how to race properly. I know that every race is different and the only way to learn is through trial and error.

I woke up at 6:55am (too early....) and made my way downstairs to grab some breakfast, eating a bowl of cereal with some orange juice. I don't like to have a lot of food in my stomach before I go racing; I have had bad experiences with cramps during races. After I ate breakfast, I quickly took a shower, got dressed, and relaxed on the couch waiting to leave for the ponds. I asked Matt if we were driving, but he then told me that we were walking. Oh well. As we were walking to the ponds, Ryan passed us in his pick-up and gave us a lift.

We got there a few minutes before 9am (When the girls race was scheduled to start). All of the guys sat around the picnic tables, waiting for the starting gun to go off, simultaneously signaling the start of the women's race and the beginning of the guy's warm-up. We strolled along the course for our warm-up, about two miles, came back and laced up our flats/spikes. By the time we had gotten there, two of the girls were already finished. Shortly after all the girls finished, the men gathered together and headed toward the starting line, decked out in our racing apparel. We (The guy's team) stood behind the starting line, while our teammate Scott (Injured at the moment, but our #2-3 runner) gave us the starting commands and we were quickly off.

In the novel "Once a Runner," Quenton Cassidy states that the first lap in a mile race is "lost in a flash of adrenaline." That's exactly how I felt during the first mile of the race. The first mile went by very quickly, yet I heard my split (Yelled at me by our assistant coach) as "6:08." During the second mile, I was just trying to keep the rhythm I had in the first mile. About a mile and a half in, I saw Peter (A freshman from Eisenhower) 150 meters ahead of me and could tell that he was slowing down. I don't know if he had gone out too hard, but my goal was to catch him, and eventually, pass him. I did just that right at the two-mile mark, which I crossed in 12:34. My third mile was a struggle. I didn't have anyone in front of me (That I could see). It's always tough to run hard by yourself. I guess that's one skill I need to pick up on rather quickly.

About 400m away from the three-mile mark, I saw a guy ahead of me, who I immediately tried to catch up to. By three miles, I was only a step behind him and coasted behind him for about 400m. After that, I decided to pass him because he was starting to slow down. The last mile (for me) was pretty tough. I knew that I just needed to push through the pain and focus on maintaining my form. About 400m from the finish line, I began to hear footsteps coming from behind me. I thought that it was going to be the older guy I passed at three miles, but it was Peter. He flew by me (It looked like he was starting his kick), but I didn't think to go with him. I knew that I feel like I could have out kicked him if needed be, but this was just a time-trial. I just kept pace and only quickened my stride the last 150m. My final time was a 25:54, yet when I looked down at my watch, it told me that the course was actually 4.08 miles, instead of four miles. On paper I averaged 6:28min/mile pace, yet I actually averaged 6:21min/mile pace.

I got second to last out of my teammates. I didn't expect to beat anyone else (Just Wes). My goal is to be able to run sub-six min/mile pace for the duration of an 8k (or a sub 30:00 8k). I know I can do it, I just have to get use to pushing the pace (by myself) and hopefully that can turn into some fast times. Today was another trial of miles, with many more miles of trials left to go this season.

Tempo Troubles.

Day two of cross-country practice separated the men from the boys, and I felt like the junior high kid running 7:30's in the 1600m. The afternoon workout was a 1.5 mile warmup, followed by a three mile tempo run. After the tempo, we were supposed to jog a mile for recovery and then meet up at the track for a hard 1600m on the track. Today's workout showed me the kind of shape that I was in and today I was running blind.

We had to meet up at the Pavilion at 9am for a morning shakeout run (An easy two miles). I got up at around 7:15am, made myself some breakfast (Peanut butter toast) and took a quick shower before we headed up to the Pav. We sat around for a while, waiting for Kevin to show up (Kevin tends to be fashionably late). After our quick run, Matt and I headed back down to his place to grab some lunch and to chill before heading back up to Kiwanis Park for a team lunch. Kevin had made a massive trip to Fred Meyer's, in which he bought deli meats, cheese, fruit, juices, cookies, snacks and other typical lunchtime fare. It was fun interacting with everyone, although there seems to be a trend where the guys always congregate together and the girls do the same. Maybe one day we'll all hang out together haha.

After lunch, Matt and I just went up to Ryan's place to chill before we had to go to practice at 2pm (Meeting about training). We didn't end up running till 3pm, which was fine cause that's our scheduled practice time. We headed out from the Pav, down Brook lane to Brick, up Brick hill and down Radio St to Flenning. We traveled up Flenning a little ways and that was where we would start our Tempo. We waited a little bit for Kevin to get there on his bike, but pretty much as soon as he got there, we were on our way.

This tempo was my first tempo in about a month and a half, so I wasn't too surprised that I found myself in the back of the pack right away. Even Manu didn't pick up his pace until we were about 1/4 mile in. I decided to set my watch to split every 1/4 mile, to help me make sure that I was staying on pace. At the one mile point, I was behind the back of the pack by about ten seconds. My coach gave me my split, "6:09." According to my watch, my first mile was actually a 6:18, but no matter the split, I wasn't feeling too hot. My legs were feeling a little tired, and aerobically I was being "worked," but I had the worst case of cotton mouth that I have ever had. My mouth was completely dry and I still had another two miles to go. At 1.5 miles in, I had to stop for a brief second, try and get any saliva I could muster up, and continued the rest of my run. The last mile of the tempo felt good, more importantly, I felt strong during my last mile. My mile splits were 6:18, 6:21, 6:23 for the tempo. I am pleased with my effort cause I know that I was working hard, yet at the same time it was bittersweet knowing that I was the second to last person to finish the workout.

After the tempo, I quickly grabbed a drink of water and began the one mile recovery jog. At this point, my legs were feeling a little heavy, but felt all right considering my effort. We headed over to the track after Kevin opened the gate and we started our hard mile shortly after. He said that this should be "Everything you had left," but I knew that I wasn't gonna press super hard. I decided that I would try and run 1:25's (which would be 5:40 pace) and thought that would be a good, solid time. As Kevin said "go," immediately I was in the back of the pack. At this point, I didn't really care. I just kept my pace rolled along the track. As I passed the start line for the opening lap, Kevin read off our splits "85". Perfect.. right on pace. Second lap was just about maintaining pace, which I felt that I did. Second lap, "2:51" A tad slower (An 87), but nothing too bad. During the third lap, I just focused on staying relaxed, instead of worrying how far ahead everyone else is. 1200m in... "4:17." That lap was another 87, which felt surprisingly good. As I entered the back stretch, I gradually started to quicken my pace. I noticed that Matt was only a few meters ahead of me, he must have been having an off day. I cross the finish line "5:40." Right where I wanted, and it felt hard, but a good hard.

After a short mile cool-down, I had to go take a massive dump (I know.. maybe not the most appropriate thing to say on a blog, but that's what I had to do). This tempo really opened my eyes to knowing my pace during runs. More importantly, it taught me that all the guys here are already in solid shape. This is only gonna make me work harder to try and improve. With our upcoming time trial on Saturday, only time will tell how everyone is gonna fit in. I was the second to last person to finish both the "tempo" and the "hard mile" on the track today. I hope that Kevin sees something in me that he likes.