My summer training began with a strong bang on May 4th. And by a strong bang I mean three miles at 8:15 pace down Contour. After a season of not living up to my goals and numerous personal setbacks including a bad case of the ick, an iron deficiency, and shin splints (most likely caused by previously mentioned iron deficiency), I felt a lot of pressure going into summer training, all of which was imposed by myself. I felt a need to feel fast again, to get a mileage base that would carry me into the upcoming cross season on a strong, uninjured, note. I pictured my summer with me training as an elite. Going to bed at 9 pm, waking up before the sun to training, eating well, rolling and stretching on the reg. Fun stuff that would make me hella fast and an aerobic beast.
As soon as I got back home I realized I had a major obstacle. Rain. Living in Grapevine, I had planned out many courses that would challenge me for tempos and be fun for easy runs. When I got back they were all underwater. Usually, it would take me about a mile and a half to get down to where the lake started. When I got home the lake was so high it was threatening the lower half of our neighborhood. Major roads were closed and the rain just wouldn’t stop. All of the parks I used to run at were underwater. I got pretty used to driving to get to a running course.
The day after I got back from paradise I began my imprisonment work at Kroger. Like most college students, having some form of income, especially during the summer, is fairly (very) important to me, and I went into the job not expecting much. My first day there I worked an eight hour shift. Eight hours on my feet, walking around, carrying and lifting heavy stuff, stuff like that. I went home that night with veryyyyy sore feet, but nothing awful. My run the next day had some foot pain, but nothing bad. The next day, I worked another eight hour shift, and then Wednesday another. When I went home Wednesday, the pain had gotten bad, and putting any pressure on my heals at all was overly painful. I attempted a faster easy run and didn’t get too far before having sharp pain along the heal and midfoot. Thursday was even worse, to the point where I actually pulled myself out of running. After a quick chit-chat with Coach Daum we concluded that it was plantar facistis. Considering how bad it was hurting, I was convinced it was a stress fracture or something, so this was a strange relief. Nothing to laugh at, but luckily after a few days of taking it easy and lots and lots of frozen water-bottle rolling, I was back rolling at full speed.
Ever since then it’s been downhill, and I’m finally getting to a point where I can say I’m somewhat proud of where I am. Getting to the point of balancing working full time-40 hours a week-while running over 60 miles a week and getting enough sleep has been much harder than I would’ve though, especially considering my job is inherently physical, but I somehow managed. Exhaustion kicked my butt, but I just kept telling myself that it’ll only get worse once I have a real job to balance with running.
I’ve been incredibly lucky to have good people to run with from high school and push me. When you go to the high school I did, it’s almost expected you’ll run in college, and having 5 old teammates who now all run for a variety of division one schools to run tempos and long runs with on a consistent basis has been a great experience for me. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without being able to watch their pony tails get smaller and smaller as they crush me on tempos. Bob Jones park has finally unflooded, and I now have some of those trails and a grass loop that will hopefully help with injury prevention. I wish I had pictures, but we aren’t really the type of people who take pictures when we’re running. It’s like business, we go, run, usually grab breakfast, and then go take naps or something. Other than that, I’ve run a race where me and Rachel-my teammate and future roommate-accidently met up as a weird coincidence. It was a rough race, 92 degrees, full sun, luckily only one real hill, but it was nice to see where we were vs. where we want to be. I feel like after not racing for a long time I just forget how to push myself to the same level I usually do, so periodically racing is a good reminder for the legs.
I’m not 100% sure how to finish this, but I can say is now with only about a week left of summer I’m way too excited to see my team and see what we can do this year. On August 12, it’ll be 80 days until the SCAC championships, on August 16th 90 days to Regionals, and on August 13th, it’ll be 100 days to Nationals (countdowns are very important to me. Shout out to Shannon for doing the back to school countdown), and I’m so hella pumped to race with my team through hills and humidity. We’re gonna do great things this year!
As soon as I got back home I realized I had a major obstacle. Rain. Living in Grapevine, I had planned out many courses that would challenge me for tempos and be fun for easy runs. When I got back they were all underwater. Usually, it would take me about a mile and a half to get down to where the lake started. When I got home the lake was so high it was threatening the lower half of our neighborhood. Major roads were closed and the rain just wouldn’t stop. All of the parks I used to run at were underwater. I got pretty used to driving to get to a running course.
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| In case you needed proof of water height |
The first week of “off season training,” my plan changed even more. As a backstory, I’m an incredibly stubborn person. I like to think this works to my advantage in running, as I literally never give up on anything I want (as Coach Daum knows FAR too well), but when it comes to, say, personal opinions on wisdom tooth extraction, it may work against me. For years I’ve been refusing any orthodontic surgery, and as a result, on May 26th, I work up with a swollen cheek and shooting pain in my lower left jaw. Pericoronitis is an infection where bacteria gets in between the gum and an impacted wisdom tooth, and lemme tell you it hurts. My runs became harder again as the infection and fever and pain made it harder to run. That coupled with my still recovering red blood cells made for a rough week. The general consensus involved me needed to get them out, but not being able to until the infection went away. One of the main reasons I put off wisdom tooth was a fear of missing training. Logically, I understand that a few days won’t make a difference, but putting logic into action has never been my strong point. That combined with coming from a team with a mentality of no off days (when I joined TUXC I had two years of consecutive running days) means stopping isn’t my fave. However, I’ve gotten better-ish since then, and I somehow managed to make it through four days off. Holla.
My first day back was in Hawaii, which def made the time off worth the wait. Hawaii was a-freaking-mazing, and every run felt like some sort of nature adventure. The humidity was, theoretically, at 87%, BUT it didn’t feel like it at all. Even with all the beauty, I still wasn’t running at 100%, but luckily the carefree attitude of Hawaii took over so I didn’t care too much. |
| Got the whole fam there! |
The day after I got back from paradise I began my imprisonment work at Kroger. Like most college students, having some form of income, especially during the summer, is fairly (very) important to me, and I went into the job not expecting much. My first day there I worked an eight hour shift. Eight hours on my feet, walking around, carrying and lifting heavy stuff, stuff like that. I went home that night with veryyyyy sore feet, but nothing awful. My run the next day had some foot pain, but nothing bad. The next day, I worked another eight hour shift, and then Wednesday another. When I went home Wednesday, the pain had gotten bad, and putting any pressure on my heals at all was overly painful. I attempted a faster easy run and didn’t get too far before having sharp pain along the heal and midfoot. Thursday was even worse, to the point where I actually pulled myself out of running. After a quick chit-chat with Coach Daum we concluded that it was plantar facistis. Considering how bad it was hurting, I was convinced it was a stress fracture or something, so this was a strange relief. Nothing to laugh at, but luckily after a few days of taking it easy and lots and lots of frozen water-bottle rolling, I was back rolling at full speed.
Ever since then it’s been downhill, and I’m finally getting to a point where I can say I’m somewhat proud of where I am. Getting to the point of balancing working full time-40 hours a week-while running over 60 miles a week and getting enough sleep has been much harder than I would’ve though, especially considering my job is inherently physical, but I somehow managed. Exhaustion kicked my butt, but I just kept telling myself that it’ll only get worse once I have a real job to balance with running.
I’ve been incredibly lucky to have good people to run with from high school and push me. When you go to the high school I did, it’s almost expected you’ll run in college, and having 5 old teammates who now all run for a variety of division one schools to run tempos and long runs with on a consistent basis has been a great experience for me. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without being able to watch their pony tails get smaller and smaller as they crush me on tempos. Bob Jones park has finally unflooded, and I now have some of those trails and a grass loop that will hopefully help with injury prevention. I wish I had pictures, but we aren’t really the type of people who take pictures when we’re running. It’s like business, we go, run, usually grab breakfast, and then go take naps or something. Other than that, I’ve run a race where me and Rachel-my teammate and future roommate-accidently met up as a weird coincidence. It was a rough race, 92 degrees, full sun, luckily only one real hill, but it was nice to see where we were vs. where we want to be. I feel like after not racing for a long time I just forget how to push myself to the same level I usually do, so periodically racing is a good reminder for the legs.
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| Me and Rachel with our super cool gold race medals (first place is the best place) |
I’m not 100% sure how to finish this, but I can say is now with only about a week left of summer I’m way too excited to see my team and see what we can do this year. On August 12, it’ll be 80 days until the SCAC championships, on August 16th 90 days to Regionals, and on August 13th, it’ll be 100 days to Nationals (countdowns are very important to me. Shout out to Shannon for doing the back to school countdown), and I’m so hella pumped to race with my team through hills and humidity. We’re gonna do great things this year!
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