Notes
So the cross country season is over!
Last year, one of my goals was "Break 28 in a cross country race." I didn't do that, so that's a bit disappointing at first. Then I realized I missed it by 6 seconds, which was a 90 SECOND PR OVER LAST YEAR. Sorry, 90 SECOND PR. Even my worst race this year was two seconds slower than last year's PR.
Overall, I'm very pleased with how this year went for myself. Teamwise, it was a bit disappointing, but we had a very young team and injuries rocked us pretty hard.
Downs/Cons:
-WNEC Race. Easily one of the worst races I've ever run and supremely disappointing.
-Summer training could have been slightly better.
-Some points of lacking drive. I never came out of a race and felt like there was no way to have gone faster. Admittedly, that's about 30 minutes after finishing and cresting the runner's high.
-Easy runs got too fast at the end of the year.
-The sort-of hip injury that I had. It's weird because at the time it was bad, but I've almost entirely forgotten about it.
Ups/Pros:
-Cities. Terrible conditions, very hard course and I had one of my better races. Time wasn't fantastic, but it felt like a strong race.
-NEWMACs. Horrible lead up, and then I uncork a 22 second course PR. That race felt good and I caught people consistently throughout.
-UMass Dartmouth. Simply flying.
-Race strategy. After the first race, I figured out that I need to start a bit slower and then just drop people one after another. Just click them off and keep pushing forward.
-Running in bad conditions. Other than UMass, my best two meets were in terrible conditions. That's something that I've gotten better at.
-Training overall. Maceiko's workouts were challenging but very doable. That made me feel like a badass finishing them while also meaning that I could do them. That confidence boost was immensely helpful.
Sophomore cross country: A good season. I would say one bad race, three very strong races, and two solid races.
Goals for indoor:
-Break 17 in the 5K. This should be one of the first races back. If so, break 16:40.
-Break 9:45 in the 3K. I don't know how many 3Ks I'll run, so...
-Get up to 70 miles per week of training.