Potential just means you haven't done it yet

Fourth of July today, and with it comes races. It was also my first day of 14, which turns out isn't really that bad. But that could just be because it was so split up because of the race. I did a two mile warm up just easy at 8 minute pace and then stretches and a few stride outs. I started the race out with a lot of guys, but pretty soon into the race it separated to just 4 of us, connor, the twins jirdaa and jirda, and I. We all stayed together for awhile until about 2 miles in and then connor made a move out front and one of the twins tried to go out with him while the other fell behind me. After about a half mile the twin in front looked back at his brother, yelled at him to pick it up and then when he didn't, used it as an excuse to drop back with him. From then on out I was all alone 10k runner wise. I was surrounded by all of the 5krs of course, but they were all walking or just jogging along and on the other side of the road. I had this guy in green in my sights the whole time tho and I tried to stay the same distance and make up ground on him, but I wasn't paying that much attention to him to remember if I did or not. I felt strong going up the hills and I was able to maintain a fast pace on the flats and pick it up on the down hill. I'm glad I didn't go over 6 minutes for a split at all during the race, but I did get close. I closed with a good sprint and I'm actually really happy with how I preformed and did. Im pretty sure I was the first high schooler who lives in state, green shirt guy is from california, to pass the finish line so thats cool. I cooled down at a sub 7:30 pace, 7:11. I had to go up some pretty gnarly hill on my cool down and I think I was running up the foothills the whole time, but I never went over 7:30 pace and coming back down was good. It's amazing to think that just last track season cooling down at that pace wouldn't have been thinkable, but now it feels totally normal and good. Maybe its because it's so much slower than my race and "easy" run paces that it really has become my recovery pace and I'm pretty excited about that and what it means. Haha even if the rest of the guys aren't quite as thrilled about it as I am.

Recovery run today. Not too bad. I went out to the Jordan River trail from my house and made it a ways down it. I started off with jackie, but she decided she needed to go a different pace than what I was doing so she broke off and went a different way pretty soon. It was hard to stay in pace without getting distracted or staying at a constant pace so that I wasn't going super fast at the start of the mile and then really slow at the end of it over and over again. But at the end of it I got the hang of things and I felt like my pacing was a little better than it had been.

Today I died. The rest of the guys did next weeks speed today because they'll be gone next week so while they were doing mile repeats I just kind of ran behind them at easy pace and tried to not fall to far behind mileage wise. I ended up running the whole thing with them and getting 7 miles total when they finished. Those first 7 miles were pretty hard to be honest and while I was in the pace zone, I was usually always towards the slow end and it was getting pretty hard to stay there. After the 7 with them, I kind of stood around for awhile trying to catch my breath and give my legs a break, while also trying to convince one of them to bike next to me for my last 7, but it didn't work. I ended going out and while my quads and calves were still super sore, they warmed up really fast and I was able to actually pick things up and my first few miles were all at around 6:20s for that last 7. Until mile 11 hit I was doing great and then thats when I died. That was the first mile that I had over my pace limit, which is the first time I've done that this year and I started to get really shaky and wobbly and I got that feeling that you get when you are completely empty and your body starts running on muscle instead of fat or carbohydrates because nothings left. Luckily I was near Ryans house and so I knocked on his door and begged for food. While I might have gotten some strange looks from his family, I had the most sugary cereal I could find and I downed that thing as fast as I could. After thanking them and probably weirding them out I said goodbye and headed out on my run again. Even though I had a full stomach of cereal and milk I couldn't really feel it and I was glad that I had had it. Now I felt more normal, but I could tell that I couldn't return to easy pace without dying again so then I transitioned to recovery pace and I barely made it in under that pace for the last 3 miles. I did survive however and make it to do my core and Biking still. I biked more than usual because for some reason it made my legs feel a lot better. Probably because it was working out all of the latic acid in my legs that would have probably built up and totally destroyed me later on in the week as I try to run

Today was a easy recovery run, which I obviously didn't get in the pace range for, but that was because I was on a trail. I also didn't do the right amount of miles, but thats because I got lost. Like really bad, I was supposed to be doing the Potato trail head run that we always do at the end of camp, which is supposed to actually be a little bit short of 10 miles, so I was going to run more when I got back just on Annes trail, but I got lost coming back up from the bottom of the canyon and ended up running all the way back to the corral on some obscure bike trail and then back tracking my way from the corral to the trail head. So in other words it was lots of fun in a, I hate this, kind of way.

Easy run pace. warm up of 8 minutes, but the rest was an overall average of 6:28. Good run today. I didn't totally die, even though I am still a little bit sore from earlier this week. Didn't get to bike or do core today because of my familys "staycation" and they wanted to get out doing stuff so therefore I needed to cut my workout short

long run pace. I went out and my dad biked next to me the whole time. For him it was nice and easy, but for me, it took a little more effort than it probably should have. My warm up mile was 8 minute so that slowed my overall average down, but the rest of the run was done at a 6:49 pace. I was happy I didn't have to do easy run pace today, that would have been killer. My dad pointed out to me that I need to push my hips forward more so that I can have better form so I need to start working on that more and strengthening my hips more so that I can do that