No more 'What If's': On to Outdoors!

My last blog is from a few weeks ago, and in the meantime I have had 2 more races and completed my indoor season. Usually when I don’t write anything after a race, it's probably bad news. It’s hard to write a blog about a race in which you made poor tactical mistakes or ran slow times, and way more exciting to write about new personal records and achieving your goals! Nevertheless, I'll take you with me through my indoor season, because although it was disappointing and I didn’t achieve any of my goals (no PR's, no school records and definitely no qualification for NCAA’s), the lessons I learned will hopefully make my outdoor season the best one so far!

Talking about lessons learned... In my last blog I said that the first rule for racing well is not leading if you don't have to. Well actually, I have changed my mind:

How To Run a Good Race New Rule 1: Feel Good!

This indoor season was a mess. I started out good, with a win in my first race. The next race was okay, although I made poor tactical decisions and led for the entire first half, which cost me on the end. The next week I wanted to run at a meet put on at the World Indoor Track here in Portland, but last-minute the mile was changed into a 1500m, which is not a distance you can qualify on for Nationals, so it made no sense to run it. Instead I had a great workout on that same indoor track: the times indicated that I had made a big step compared to where I was last year at this time, and that I was ready to run a fast mile and 3km. Confidence, confidence!

That was the good part of the season. Now on to the bad part. Instead of taking it easy after this workout and recovering properly, I trained hard over the weekend, and came out of that weekend tired. Despite following this hard week up by an easy week, I wasn’t recovered enough and felt awful in my race on Saturday. It was really too bad, because for the first time in the season, I was in a perfect heat with fast girls. All I had to do was follow… Which is not that easy when your legs do not want to cooperate.

After this race I had a good talk with my coach, and we decided to take it really easy for the next 2 weeks, and I had to promise him I would do exactly what he had in mind and not do more than what was on the schedule. I slowly started to feel better and thought that things were coming together just in time, but unfortunately I was still not recovered enough, and my race this weekend was almost as bad as the mile 2 weeks ago. I was placed in a bad heat, and no-one wanted to run fast. I didn't feel like leading again because we all know how poorly that worked out last time, but whenever I would try to get rid of the lead the pace would slow dramatically. I tried to run away from the field, but my legs didn't have any power in them. I then tried to just secure the win, but it is pretty hard to keep your mind into it when you know you are running incredibly slow and with every step, your dreams and goals for the season are slipping away.

If you look at my season, you can say that it was pretty terrible. On the positive side though, I am convinced that it was not a lack of fitness that explains my bad results. I think there was a moment in the season in which I was in shape to run records, and even to qualify for NCAA’s. Yet the most important thing going into races is that you feel good, that you are ready to go, and that is where I made the mistake. So what is the main lesson I learned? I learned that I should listen to (1) my coach, and (2) the signals of my body. My coach is very good in making sure that we do enough, but not too much; my body is very good in telling me when it is enough, and when it is too much. Usually when I don’t want to run, it means that my body is telling me to slow done, to take it easy, to take a day off. But for me, it is hard not to attribute this feeling of not wanting to run to just being lazy. So I usually ignore the feeling and go out of the door for my planned session eitherway. And that is how I end up in situations like this!

Let's end this blog more positive than it started, I have exciting news! I am having a little break now, and will resume training by the end of the week. Not for a 3km or for a 1500m or for a 5km, but… for a 10.0000 meters on the track at the Stanford Invitational! I am very excited to try this event and very curious to see what I can do in it! I am also definitely a little scared. 25 laps on a track is well, a lot.
I am going to write a little bit about my journey towards this 10km on the end of every week, so you can follow along with my preparation for this new, scary, exciting distance!