C Mantz Run

Today we did sunnyside at xc.  Conner and I got there a little late so we were trying to catch up to everybody.  I thought it was a warm up when we did because everybody seemed to be going slow.  Turns out the girls wanted the boys to be behind them for a mile or something like that which was pretty funny.  After the boys passed us we seemed to be going much faster.  When we got to the part of the canyon where you could keep going up or go down, I wanted to go up.  Riley ran up with me while everybody else turned to go down.  We chatted as we went up.  At one point we passed the faster boys and they cheered for us which was pretty funny.  We kept going and we were a little behind the coaches, so we turned around where they did.  It was a super fun run and I felt way good for just getting back from camp.

Conner had promised me he was going to pace me for a sub-six minute mile for quite a while, and today I finally got him to do that.  My mom also bought me some really nice flats that were on sale for $20 this last spring and Conner helped her pick out the right pair.  I hadn't ever used them and he said it would help my time.  We drove down to the track and did a half mile warm up.  Then I put my flats on and stretched.

During the mile I was pushing it really hard and a little too hard at the beginning.  At some points I wanted to just give up and go slow, but Conner kept me going.  I got around a 6:02 which was a PR, but not what I exactly wanted.  I was still happy, though. 

Afterwards, I went on a nice cool down/jog.  As I was going around the track, Conner was doing mile repeats or something like that.  About half a mile in, the football boys came onto the field and I knew some of them.  I thought I'd just do 3 or so, but then I got the idea to just run home.  After a mile and a half, I told Conner what I was going to do and did it.  On my run home, I went super slow because it was really muggy and I just wasn't feeling like going very fast.  I had fun, though, running with my older brother.

So today was a speed day at xc.  We did a small warm up and then went to the track.  Coach had us do 600's interval pace, then a 200 recovery 6 times.  I accidentally was looking at my rep pace on the cards and I made my time that I was supposed to get much faster.  The first time around wasn't that bad.  I tried to stay with Riley almost the entire time.  The second I wasn't feeling as if I was getting enought of a recovery.  The third is when it began to really hurt.  My times had gotten much slower.  The fourth time around I couldn't catch up to Riley and we passed the coach who told me to relax my upper body and make my breathing less deep.  I did that, but my form was a little wrong because I relaxed my arms instead of pumping them super hard.  The fifth time I felt not very great and the final time I went all out and felt like dieing.  At the very last sprint Amber started to pass me, so I began sprinting as fast as I could and barely beat her.  We did a cool down which felt amazing and then did some hip and core workouts.  I compared my times and my fastest was 20 seconds different from my slowest which I thought was well until Conner told me that wasn't very great.  I know I really need to work on my sprinting, and I'm trying pretty hard, but I don't want to peak early or mess my times up, so I try to do speed only once or twice week.  It was a hard, but fun run.

4 miles

For xc we did golf course.  We started out nicely and just kept going at a nice pace.  We mainly just chatted during our run.  While we were going down the canyon the sun was at a perfect angle and all of us girls were lined up across the road as we ran.  Our shadow would have been such a cool picture.  As we were running Riley and I were on the ends and we both would speed up making everybody else go faster.  I didn't really notice this until Carly pointed it out.  At the very end we all went out in a sprint which was so much fun.

My dad and I went on a longer run.  We went up the canyon and my dad had already gone on a run with Conner, so he was pretty worn out.  I was a couple feet ahead of him until mile 3 which is where I tend to get tired up the canyon.  Mile 3 to 4 was pretty slow, but when we turned around I sped up.  I felt pretty good during that run and it was a lot of fun going with my dad.