Conference Meet

I'm in the middle of midterm season, and the fact that I'm not a diligent studier is biting me in the ass right now (hence the late blog). I have a Microecon exam tomorrow that's like 35% of my grade in the class, blech. Anyway, the last week was very good to me. I got in two good workouts and a moderate long run and got to watch most of my teammates set personal records or otherwise compete with distinction. BU placed third on the men's side and the 141 points my teammates racked up were the most ever scored by BU at the indoor conference meet. The women were a little more plagued with injuries than the men's team, but I do want to mention my friend Katie's solo 16:06 win and automatic qualifier for indoor nationals. Our coach summed it up perfectly when he called it "the perfect example of mind over matter." I don't want her getting a swelled head, though, so I won't say anything further :)

Here's what I did this week:

Monday Feb 14- 8AM: 30min easy indoors, outside pants were in the wash. 3:30PM: 3mi up, 4mi tempo on a measured two-mile section of the Charles, 20:13, out in 10:20 into a 20mph headwind, back in 9:53 same effort, but with the wind at my back, 3mi cool down. It was like 50 degrees out and I figured I could run a little under 5:15s if I was feeling good. I felt so good that I was sure the course was about 100m short (200 total, obviously, since I ran it twice) but a re-measure on mapmyrun confirmed it. It felt great to have some nice weather.

Tuesday Feb 15- 9:30AM: 4mi easy indoors, tired. I was more sleepy tired than fatigued tired because the heat in our apartment obeys no commands but its own whim, and so I didn't sleep much because the heater was imitating a wounded animal and keeping my room at a balmy 50 deg. Anyway, 3:30PM- 9mi to Fresh Pond and around with Rob, felt pretty good.

Wednesday Feb 16- 3:30PM: Too much homework for a morning run (worked Tuesday night and didn't get any school work done). A lap around JP with the Melon and Colin, plus two laps outside for 9, then 4x150 and a 200 in 28.9 with a few more minutes of jogging for 10 total. Felt tired on the strides, but that's to be expected.

Thursday Feb 17- 10AM: ~2 and 1/2 to the doctor's and back for my allergy shots. 55 out and you all better believe that no force of man or nature could wipe the shit-eating grin off my face all day today. I didn't have class, it was beautiful and sunny out, and I had not yet found out about the D on my Spanish exam (no me gusta). 3:30PM- 3mi up to Fisher Hill in Brookline, 8x60 seconds HARD up the hill with jog down rest. I ran to a convenient landmark on the first one, right at the top of the hill, in 63 seconds, and got down to 57 by the last one. Today was just one of those days, so I ran hard. 3mi down.

Friday Feb 18- America East Day 1. Lots of good performances. I did 10mi easy after the meet, mostly with another redshirt teammate, but some with cooling down DMR folk, too. Night runs are all well and good, but I wish I had woken up a little earlier to run before going to class all day.

Saturday Feb 19- America East Day 2. Even more good performances, which got me fired up to rejoin my friends outdoors. 3:30PM- After the meet I nipped out for a progressive 17mi long run. No watch, but I ran with some of the mid-D guys on their cooldown, pulled Bhatt along for about 10 and a half, then did the last 6 and a half solo, running increasingly faster as the run drew to a close. Part of it was coming home with the wind at my back, but it was funny how once I got to 13 miles, I just wanted to HAMMER. I've had some trouble with recovering from runs like that, though, and I tried to keep a lid on things.

Sunday Feb 20- 11AM: Snuck in 4mi before I had brunch with my mother, brother, and sister, who came down to visit me. We were celebrating my brother's 18th birthday and his decision to attend the University of Portland out in Oregon next year. As an approximately 4:30y/9:40y kid, he's not going to be having too much one on one time with the coach, but Kev met him on his visit and should be able to walk on. Hopefully he won't run afoul of roster limits or anything. I like what Connor has done with his athletes, and I hope my brother ends up one of those scrubs-made-good stories you hear about on occasion. At least it gives me an excuse to go out and visit him and run in Forest Park. 5:30PM- 8.5 nice and easy with James. There was a tennis match going on at the TTC, so I didn't get to do my strides or the short add-on I had planned to do, but I was hungry anyway.

Total- 90.5

A good week. All my best to all you folks readin'