Another Frustrating Week

Ok, I won't rehash Penn again. Frankly, I'd like to forget about that. I did, however, come back and race the 1500 at our conference meet. I felt pretty crappy the whole way, but my hamstring behaved ok. I was supposed to run the 800 and 4x400 too, but Pete and I decided if it was tight at all, I'd scratch from the later events, which is what I did.

Monday- 2 mile w/u, 4x(800, 400) with half-jog rest (so about 1:40 and 50 seconds). 2:16/66, 2:15/64, 2:18/65, 2:15/60. My hamstring was really bad during and after this one- the workout was much harder than it should have been and the howling winds/40deg temperatures didn't help. Looking back (isn't hindsight always 20/20?) I should have told Pete how bad it was.

Tuesday- 7 miles easy with Wilson, 47 min. Hamstring was tight but I thought it was better than Monday.

Wednesday- AM- 4 easy, solo- 27:40
PM- Travel down to Penn, 3 easy with the groups + 6xstrides. Hamstring felt pretty good, didn't think it'd be an issue anymore.

Thursday- 2pm- 3 easy.
9:30pm- 2.5 warmup, about 2600m of the 5000 at Penn at roughly 68-69 second pace (I wasn't really looking at the splits but I think I saw 4:34 at the mile?). I was hardly breathing when I had to stop; I just couldn't lift my leg any more. So far, this has to be one of the most disappointing races of my career. However, I lived to run another day and didn't blow my season limping a 15:30 5k on a bum leg.

Friday- 20 minutes very slow on grass to test hamstring. The very slow running and tons of icing/stretching seemed to help.

Saturday- 2 miles up, 1500 at Little East. It was like 90 degrees out and I felt like crap, but I managed to eke out a win. I sat through 800 (65, 66) then took the lead and tried to test out my hamstring a little with a cautious acceleration, going 62 then 46 for a last 700m of 1:48. I was pretty much recovered within fifteen minutes or so, but mostly just glad my hamstring went ok.

Sunday- slow 10, again, being cautious about the hamstring. I think it's more or less recovered. This is just another thing that adds to fantastic season I'm having so far. At this point, I just want to qualify for the 1500 and give nationals every ounce of what I've got, then take about two weeks off from running entirely. I have 3 weeks and 3 more chances to drop that 3:51 and get to nationals, and I won't be wasting any of them.

Have a good week, everyone- and learn from my colossal fuckup. Be honest with yourself when something is really bugging you, and don't take a dumb chance with your season just to run in a cool race.