Notes
Nationals 2016. Running Hershey hills with minimal training is quite challenging, I'm sure it's hard even with training. But it was a very painful race. My legs are sore and today is Wednesday. Definitely a very fun weekend, though. I love this team <3
It's been an interesting season and after a lot of resistance, I made it through. I'm glad I did, but I haven't decided what my future is with running. I think time will help me decide. I'm in a weird place with cross country right now where I hate it when I do it but I miss it if I don't do it. I want to run for the rest of my life and I want to be a high school coach because I really do love this sport and it has definitely changed my life. I think part of my problem is feeling burned out- my high school coach was really intense and my whole life in high school pretty much revolved around running which was awesome, I loved high school and XC was my favorite part of it. But I also think that being under so much pressure to race well sort of turned my hobby into something stressful. Senior year I was my team's 5th runner and the first 4 girls were all naturally very fast, like sub 17:00 fast so my coach put a lot of pressure/blame on me that season because I am not that fast naturally and had to work really hard to get that 5th spot. So now I have a hard time racing without feeling stressed even though there's no pressure like that anymore. I've been trying to be less stressed lately because life's short and not doing workouts etc has helped with that. But running Nationals and watching so many teammates succeed (congrats everyone, you all made me proud:) reminded me how fun it is to be fast and contribute to a successful team. I have lots of time to figure out what I want to do because I won't be around for track season. I want running to be fun and I want to be able to focus on other things in my life without feeling guilty for the effects that would have on running; but at the same time I care about this team and I want to see it grow and succeed. I will see where I'm at in life when I come back from Study abroad and the summer. Congrats if you finished reading this, lots of thoughts today.
Thanks for all the fun, it's been a great first half of sophomore year.