Today was a day full of firsts for myself. It was my first ever collegiate XC practice, more details coming up, but it was also my first run, more details on that as well, where I averaged sub 6:40 pace for the majority of the run. All and all, it was a first day that I had expected and my expectations were already high.
My mom and I left Puyallup this morning at around 8:30am, made a quick trip to Safeway to fill up, and then departed to Ellensburg. We got here a tad after 10:30 (not a bad trip) and met up with my friend Matt (People on dyestat/tracktalk know his as "runnerman17") because I will be staying at his place for the duration of the camp. After another quick Safeway trip to get some last minute items, my mom gave me a hug goodbye and was on her way home (not without a detour to the Outlet malls in North Bend).
I got myself situated at Matt's house, which didn't take very long cause I don't have too much stuff, and then proceeded to grab my books for the quarter ($420 and still needing to get another book.... SUCH A SCAM!). After that, Matt and I headed up to the Pavilion where we would meet up everyone else.
After that, we then proceeded to sit through three and a half hours worth of meetings. It was mainly the compliance meeting that took the longest. The last thing I had eaten previously was a sandwich at around noon. We didn't even start running till about 4:50pm. Not good haha. But there wasn't anything I could do about it and before I knew it, we were out the door heading off on our first run. Our route was a giant tetrahedron, which resembles the shape of Nevada (5.62 miles in total). The first "side" was a 1.57 mile stretch leaving the Pavilion, traveling on Airport, to Bowers. Our first mile was about an 8:05, which wasn't surprising cause we were basically shuffling towards the beginning of the run. Our next "side" was a 1.50 mile stretch of just straight road. During this section of the run, the wind was in our face the ENTIRE time. But not surprisingly, our packed quickened and we pushed through the wind in a solid pack.
The next side was 0.70 mile stretch of open road, but this time the wind was at our back, and I could tell that we were just floating along. Our pace continued to pick up. It was during this stretch where some people were struggling, myself included. I still stayed up in the pack (Eleven people in the pack), but was beginning to feel like I was working a little too hard for an "aerobic" effort. Our last "stretch" was a 1.85 mile section that consisted of a 1.25 mile section of gravel and the rest on the road. It was during this part of the run where I was beginning to fade from the top group. I tried to hang on as long as I could, but my quads didn't wanna push forward anymore. At this point, we were probably running 6:20's and I couldn't keep up anymore. I slowly dropped back and at the end of the John Wanye trail, I had to stop for a brief moment and shake my legs out.
At the point where I was fading, two guys came up and passed me. I hate it when I get passed by other guys during "easy" runs cause it makes me feel like I haven't put in the right work. By the end of the run, one of those guys faded really badly and I finished about fifteen seconds behind him, probably finishing a minute behind the guys in the top pack. This run really made me realize that this is the real deal. All of these guys have better pr's than myself, and it's time to buckle down and ready for a great year.
Tomorrow's workout: A short tempo with a 1600m hard on the track afterwards. I have done very minimal speed work throughout the summer, so we'll see how I can hold up on this tempo. I am not gonna go crazy pace wise like some guys might do (5:30's). I think i'll start out more conservatively and gradually pick it up. We'll see how this goes today.
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