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October 31, 2004
Sunday wrap-up
40 miles this week, 9 miles more than last week, but still less than I should be doing. I'll hope to get more in next week, but it will be tough because the team will only get like 25 miles this week and it gets dark at 4:30. I'll have to get my extra mileage in during the mornings, and its like 30 degrees in the morning.
Sunday: 10 miles, Moon Tower run from Whitworth
Saturday: 4 miles at Greenbluff (Cherry Picker's course)
Friday: 3 miles at golf course
Thursday: 2.5 miles am
Wednesday: 2.5 miles am, 5 miles pm
Tuesday: 2.5 miles AM, 800m (2:40), 6x400 (70s)on grass, 4 miles
Monday: 2.5 miles AM, 4 miles PM (Karlin's+)
Posted by at 6:15 PM
October 30, 2004
Firing on all cylinders
Our regional meet update:
The girls’ team was a slight favorite coming into the race. I had them winning 62-62 with the tie-breaker at one point. My top 3 ran extremely well finishing 27, 34, and 35 seconds ahead of their best times so far this year. That put us in position to win by quite a bit. At 2.5 miles into the race I was feeling pretty good as our top three came through in 2nd, 6th, and 11th. My 4th and 5th were running well and in 22nd, and 24th at 1.5 miles. Then as my number came up the hill I was standing on I knew we were in trouble. She had one of those "mother-of-all-side aches" type of side ache. She started walking as she came up to me and was obviously not a happy camper. I encouraged her to finish, which she did, but she was out of it. That put us in a fairly tough spot. Our #6 isn't normally too far back (~30 seconds), but would that be enough to hold on for the win? We added 7-10 points without her in the end.
As the race finished I was really happy with everyone's races, even our #4 WAS having a great race, and thought we still had a good shot at winning because they had all run so well. About five minutes later I was adding up the scores, thanks to B for writing down the order of finish by school. We had 69 points; the #2 ranked team (F), had 79. Good news, but the #3 team (O) had run really well too. What would their total be? 72 points. We won it by that much. Looking at the results our 4th scorer (normal #5) sealed the deal by beating O's #5 runner by 1 second, and our #6 passed one and beat another runner by 1 second. 3 points, but separated by less than 2 seconds.
The top 4 teams qualified for the state meet next Saturday. Top four teams in that race get trophies. We're ranked second in the state right now.
After that excitement, I still had to endure the boys' race. This race wasn't really for the championship b/c the top team was just that much better than us. We were really only concerned about finishing in the top 4 and punching our ticket to state. 5 teams that had beaten us during the regular season were also running for one of the four spots. I knew we had a pretty good shot though because of our improvement at our League Championship and we were tapering for this race. The boys’ team is still hard to judge because the top six are 5 freshmen and a sophomore. Their strength though is that they are all very close together and can run as a pack. At league our #1 was only 36 seconds ahead of our #5 and the top 3 separated by 14 seconds. Our #4 was a DNF there because of an asthma attack.
The race strategy was pretty simple, go out conservative and move up throughout the race. Its amazing to watch these young boys use this strategy so well. I mean I didn't learn how to run that way until college! They worked it to near perfection at league though so I was pretty sure they could do it again here. At the 1/2 mile we were running about 35, 37, 50, 51, 52. Not quite the 5 in the top 20 that we were shooting for, but it was more a sign of how stupidly the rest of the teams were running. At the mile we were running about 22, 23, 35, 36, 37 and right on our finishing race pace. At mile 1.5 they were 18, 19, 27, 28, 29. At 2.5 miles they were running 14, 15, 19, 20, 23. They finished 12, 13, 14, 15, 22! The top 4 were separated by 6 seconds, and the 1-5 gap was 23 seconds. We ended up finishing 3rd overall, just two points out of 2nd. Next week we'll try to match our races and hope to finish top 4 for a state trophy. I can't tell you how impressed I have been by these freshmen. There is still a lot of room for them to improve in the next few years.
My running has taken a back seat to all of this. 30 miles so far this week and hopefully a nice long run tomorrow.
Saturday: 4 miles at Greenbluff (Cherry Picker's course)
Friday: 3 miles at golf course
Thursday: 2.5 miles am
Wednesday: 2.5 miles am, 5 miles pm
Tuesday: 2.5 miles AM, 800m (2:40), 6x400 (70s)on grass, 4 miles
Monday: 2.5 miles AM, 4 miles PM (Karlin's+)
Posted by at 7:19 PM | Comments (3)
October 28, 2004
Coach vs. Athlete
This is the part of the season that always makes me crazy. I have a lot of trouble trusting that everything we've done during the season will lead to a successful post-season. I never have this problem as a runner myself. Even though my training has not been perfect, I just have enough experience to know that everything will work out, as good or better than I expect. In coaching I don't get that! Maybe because I haven't been coaching long enough. But mostly becuase its totally out of my control. I can yell until I am blue in the face, but will that make my runners go any faster?
Tomorrow will tell.
I am continuing to attempt to get over this annoying cold and run with the team. I feel like my running is pretty good right now though, the weather here is getting quite cold and yet I haven't missed a run in over a week.
Tuesday, I went to a presentation with/about Arthur Lydiard. It was fairly interesting and even even more exciting. Its not often that the "running community" in Spokane comes out in such great force. I got an autographed copy of "running lydiard" and got some new ideas for the upcoming track season. Not much to do in cross country anymore except hope and pray.
Wednesday: 2.5 miles AM, 5 miles PM (Switchbacks+)
Tuesday: 2.5 miles AM, 800m (2:40), 6x400 (70s)on grass, 4 miles
Monday: 2.5 miles AM, 4 miles PM (Karlin's+)
Posted by at 9:58 AM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2004
Losing the sprint
Sadly my season will not end on a 3 race streak. This week was a pretty poor one, running wise. I managed only 31 miles total. I lost in a sprint to the finish today and I managed to pick up a cold to boot. Hopefully the cold will pass quickly, but I'd rather have it now than next weekend at districts or the week after at state.
My boys team looked really good last week in the league championships. We ended up losing by 1 point, but that was without our #1 or #6 running. Right now I am pretty confident that both the boys and girls will qualify for state, which always makes it more fun for me. They each need a top 4 finish to qualify. The boys are ranked 5th and the girls are ranked 1st or 2nd depending on who you ask.
Hopefully I'll get back on track with my running this week. Its getting tougher as the weather changes and its dark more. My goal is to keep running everyday and put in mileage as time allows. In any case I feel prety healthy, except for the cold, and that's always a blessing.
Sunday: 6.5 miles, 17:44 for 5K race, 8:44-9:00.
Saturday: 2 miles, great bean race
Friday: 2.5 AM, 4.5 PM - Upper-Upper to Upper
Thursday: 2 miles at League Championships
Boys lost 31-32, girls won with 15, no other complete teams
Posted by at 6:34 PM
October 20, 2004
Another day of recovery
Today I slacked off again. Not really on purpose, just felt like being lazy. I guess I'm worn out from watching too much baseball! I'll try to make up for it tomorrow morning with a long run.
Wednesday: 2.5 miles AM, 1 mile PM
Posted by at 5:15 PM
October 19, 2004
A slacker day
Today as my day turned crazy busy in the afternoon, I decided it was a good day to break. I didn't take any days off last week and I am still pretty sore from the half-marathon. Yesterday I stupidly ran the hard workout with the team and didn't take it easy like I should have. So I only ran 2.5 miles easy this morning and nothing this afternoon.
The team's league championship meet is thursday. Our league is pretty sad as far as cross country goes. Most of the schools in our league have about 120 students in their entire 9-12 grades, some less than 80. My school has about 130 in 9-12. That makes it fairly hard to field both football and cross country or volleyball and cross country. Not as hard as they make it out to be, but it does cost a fair bit of money to bus the cross country team around too.
In any case we have only 4 complete teams in the league for boys and 6 schools total that have programs. For the girls, none of the other schools have complete teams! You'd think it would be reverse since football can suck up 20 boys pretty easily and volleyball usually doesn't get quite that many girls.
I had to debate quite a bit about how to run the girls team, since they have like no competition. I finally decided that since districts is 8 days after this race, that they should run hard during the race, keeping their racing toughness.
The end of the season taper is always something I spend a lot of time on. Its really easy to do too much. I'll be trying to give lots of rest and recovery time, but also working in short sprint work for added speed. This year is a little crazy because the boys team will be peaking at our district/regional meet, while the girls will be trying to time their peak for the state meet.
Monday: 2.5 miles AM, 5.5 miles PM - "Feel the Burn" time trial - 15:50
Tuesday: 2.5 miles AM
Posted by at 8:21 PM
October 17, 2004
A great race
Today's race could not have gone more perfectly. First off, it was my first win in like forever! Second I felt great the whole way and thanks to a good push up "doomsday hill" at mile 9 I was able to run the last 1.5 miles at nearly 7 minute mile pace becuase the race got really spread out and everyone behind me decided to cruise in.
I'm fairly surprised how good I felt, considering my training during the past four weeks has been like 15,15,48,27.
Of course a 1:17:35 is not exactly a PR. I have two more races this fall, a 5K cross country, and 6 mile trail run. Both are pretty low key, so hopefully I'll be able to end the season on a high note with 3 wins!
My splits:
1: 5:41 4th
3: 17:01 (5:40, 5:41) 4th
4: 23:04 (6:03) 4th
6: 34:41 (5:48, 5:49) 2nd
7: 40:46 (6:05) 1st
8: 46:53 (6:07) 1st
9: 52:46 (5:53)<- Doomsday Hill 1st
10: 58:35 (5:49) 1st
11: 1:04:07 (5:32) 1st
12: 1:10:02 (5:55) 1st
13.1: 1:17:35 (6:43, 0:50) 1st
Sun. 10/17 - 14.5 miles - 54.5 miles this week
Posted by at 6:23 PM | Comments (5)
October 16, 2004
Race tomorrow...
Well the weather says 42 degrees and raining for the start of my race tomorrow. That might be a bit uncomfortable, but at least I'll get a nice long run in and hit 50+ miles this week, which was my goal. I might even squeeze in for the win if all the other contenders decide its too cold :) Not sure what my goal is, probably just under 6 flat pace, maybe faster if the weather isn't so bad.
Sun. Spokane Half Marathon 9AM
Sat. 4 miles easy at Riverside State Park
Fri. 4 miles am, 6x600 at 7:00 pace, 4 miles pm, 8x600 at 6:50 pace
Thurs. 2.5 miles am, 7.5 miles pm
Wed. 2.5 miles am, 0 miles pm
Tues. 2.5 miles am, 4 miles pm
mon. 2.5 miles am, 6.5 miles pm
Posted by at 7:23 PM
October 11, 2004
my ice cream is melting!
So this has to be quick, so that my Starbucks Java Chip ice cream doesn't melt away.
After slacking yesterday and pretty much all last week, I'm off to a good start; running 2.5 miles in the morning and 6.5 miles this evening.
Tomorrow I should get some pretty good mileage also since we're going to a meet, and I'll probably run the course before the races, and also get some good speed work in running back and forth to cheer on the racers.
Tons of work to get done tonight. Must get cracking!
Posted by at 6:12 PM
October 10, 2004
Catching up on sleep
I spent this weekend catching up on sleep. This past week, I spent too much time with cross country and school and didn't sleep as much as I should. I caught up this weekend though. A 3 hour nap after Saturday's meet, 10 hours of sleep last night, and another 3 hour nap today. :)
I didn't get much running in with all the sleeping, and when I was up I was a couch potato. I ran a measly 4.5 miles during the meet Saturday and didn't run at all today. I know I'll pay for this next week when I have a half-marathon race.
Posted by at 9:00 PM
October 8, 2004
Ahhh the blank page
Ok, so that's real slackerness! Not writing until the page goes blank...wow I am a real slacker. (thanks for giving me the nudge J!)
Actually, I have been running this week. I should end up with another 40 mile week depending on what I run this weekend.
Thanks to all of you for the birthday wishes. I had a great birthday despite having to work from dawn 'til moonrise.
Yesterday and today were long driving days. I drove over to Zillah to watch a cross country race that featured 3 of the other top 5 girls teams. Sad that I have to drive 3 hours to get results. Why don't more coaches put their results on the web? Anyway, I combined it with a trip to central washington to get a preview of the course we're running for our Regional meet on Oct. 30th. I camped out near the golf course where we're running, and then snuck over in the morning and ran around with my video camera. I only had a map of an invitational that was run there about 5 years ago, but hopefully the course will be the same. Somehow I managed to run the enitre course with just the map and not get lost. The golfers were a little annoyed with me, but at least I didn't get hit with one of their balls.
Today as I was driving home I stopped by the Grand Coulee dam for a tour. Officially it was faculty development day here at school so I had to do something that counted as developing myself. I think I got more out of the dam tour than my assistant coach got out of his lecture on Chinese history. Hopefully I'll be able to arrange a tour for my students next spring. Its not very long, but there's a ton to see from the hills and bridges around the dam that could make it worth while.
---22.5 miles with 2 days to go this week---
Friday Running: AM - Alta Lake Golf Course (4 miles)
Thursday Running: AM - Fish Hatchery (2.5 miles)
Wednesday Running: AM - Sherwood (2.5 miles)
Tuesday Running: AM - Fish Hatchery (2.5 miles), PM - Colfax (5 miles)
Monday Running: AM - Sherwood (2.5 miles), PM - Karlin's Run (3.5 miles)
----48 miles last week----
Sunday Running: AM - Priest Lake Trail (3 miles)
Saturday Running: PM - Natural Slides Trail (11.5 miles)
Friday Running: AM - Fish Hatchery (2.5 miles)
Thursday Running: AM - Sherwood (2.5 miles), PM - Betty's (3.5 miles)
Wednesday Running: AM - Fish Hatcher (2.5 miles), PM - Motorcycle Hill (5 miles)
Posted by at 5:23 PM | Comments (3)