Plans for the Rest of my Spring Racing Season
Hello from Fresno!
I’m here for the weekend for the PacWest Conference Championship with my team. So far our athletes have performed well with lots moving onto the finals in the 1500m and 800m tomorrow and strong places in the steeplechase and 10K finals! I just love watching them perform so well and seeing their hard work pay off.
It’s been a while since my last post and honestly the last month has been tough for me – both physically and mentally. I’ve been meaning to blog more often but the schedule of track has started to wear on me… when we start racing the season starts to fly by but each week is so busy and we race almost every weekend that I feel like I’m always playing catch up. On top of that I feel like I’ve been sick for a month! I had the stomach flu for a week at the beginning of April, recuperated in time to run a post-collegiate 5K PR on the track (16:57) and since then have been sick AGAIN for 2 weeks straight and finally just got diagnosed with a sinus infection earlier this week! I’m super frustrated with this situation and feel like it has put a damper on my training leading into my first National Championship race – which I’ve been so excited about for months! I’m finally on the mend and taking antibiotics so I’m praying that I heal in time for a few good runs/workouts before next Sunday’s race.
If everything goes as planned I’ll be running the USA Half Marathon Championships at the Pittsburgh Half Marathon next weekend – but f I’m not feeling 100% I’m unfortunately going to be sitting this race out but that decision is still TBD. (my flight and hotel are still refundable at this point so if my coach and I are feeling like I’m not going to have a good race I’m going to save my money and focus on the last two races of my season).
After Pittsburgh I have two more races on my schedule to close out my season. First up is the rabbit5000 in Santa Barbara on 6/2 and I’ll end my season with the 10K at the Portland Track Festival the following weekend. Originally, I was planning to shift my focus back to the marathon after my most recent 5K and race at Grandma’s Marathon in the middle of June but up until I got sick my 5K/10K training was going so well that I wanted to continue on that path and take advantage of the opportunity to run in a few high quality meets for those distances.
The plan for the rest of the summer is to chill. out! I’m one of those runners that needs the mental break from serious training on a regular basis and so for the remainder of June, all of July and some of August my plan is to take a few weeks off and then have an active summer. I will likely keep my running mileage on the lower end and do a lot of swimming, hiking, paddleboarding, biking, etc. to stay active. I’m really just looking forward to a break from the grind and some quality family time with Henri and Liv – and summer in California is the BEST for outdoor activities!
What is the next race that you have on the horizon?
Do you have any fun summer plans?