My Thoughts

First off, for those who won't know (i.e. all of you), I have been having a bit of shin trouble. I can run again Monday, but I'll be back to 10 miles a week or so. Hopefully I can build up quickly, but we'll have to see.

XC this year is going to be very similar to what it was my senior year of high school. For those who don't know (i.e. all of you), I got injured during indoor and outdoor junior year (my shin) and messed it up real bad by continuing to run on it (sound familiar?) I started running again towards the end of the summer, and spent most of cross dragging ass. I did get better throughout, however, and had my best race at the end of the season, running #1 for our team.

Which is all well and good, except for the fact that my best race at the end of senior year was as fast as I was racing at the beginning of my junior year. I was optimistic about this year before my shin began bothering me, but it's beginning to look more and more like a repeat of two years ago.

I think it'll be different for a number of reasons, though.

1. This isn't high school. People are good. I raced the very first race senior year, on September 9. I got a cramp and ran 18:01. I never ran that slow again (thank god), but I'm hoping this year will be a little different in that I won't race right away. I should not have started racing so soon in the season my senior year. I don't know if I'll do Alumni Run, simply by virtue of my injuries, but I don't want to start racing the following week. Whether or not I race will not affect the outcome of the team either, since I won't be scoring this year, at least at the beginning of the season (nice mileage by the way, guys, I can't wait to watch what happens).

2. I have a a history of tanking hard at the end of the season. For indoor and outdoor states my senior year, I ate it BIG TIME. It also happened last year at nationals. While various things may have contributed to the bad races, they were bound to happen. So it may be a good thing that I'm getting a late start on my training. Peak at the right time, you know? If you take into account the shape I was in at each point during the season, I never really had a bad race during senior cross. But I never ran fast, either.

3. Last year's summer was really the first that I ran serious mileage. It worked out well, I was in monster shape at the beginning of the season. And then I had nowhere to go. If I felt as good as I did at Alumni Run for every race, I'd break 25 no problem. UMass Darthmouth was a great race for me. It was also maybe the race with the least bit of consequence the whole season. Look at what Josh Kennedy did his freshman year. He and I are very, very different runners, but based on my first couple of races I expected a lot more out of myself towards the end of the season. So again, it may be good that I'm getting a (really) late start. I may peak for regionals. But I doubt I'll be throwing down anything spectacular during the month of November, besides a freakish neck beard.

But, like I said, I think this year will be different. College isn't high school; I don't need to race every weekend; even the healthy guys won't. Better training will get me there a lot faster, I hope, as will an extra month or so of base. But, 8ks are a lot different than 5ks, as in they require a lot more training volume. Still, I can only suck for so long, right?

I also haven' t been able to cross-train as much as I'd like, mainly because of serf labor and the fact that the pool is open a grand total of 4 hours a week. But I never feel like I do enough anyways.

Hopefully I am Jesse Faller Incarnate and come alive off of 30 miles a week.

Go TUTF!

This post makes no sense.