Note: this is really long just because I wanted to give as much background as needed to better grasp what situation or condition I may be in.
I am a freashman girl in highschool running on varsity, and my cross country season has been awful. Before the season started, I had been running six days a week. Speed workouts on Tuesday and Thursday's and 4-10 mile runs on the other days while slowly working up my mileage every couple weeks. My preseason had been going fairly well. I had been doing a road race just about every other week. My 10k time was 41:23, which I thought was awful at the time because I wanted to break 40:00. My excuse for that race was major blisters. At the begining of this year, I got my life time pr at 18:51. When I did that, it felt so easy, that I new I could do so much better. My last race before cross country started was 19:20, which I thought was bad, but I new that since cross country hadn't started, I would be able to reach my goal of breaking 18:00 by the end of the season. I started off my first race with my ankles hurting, so I had to take two weeks off. Knowing I was completely revovered, I jumped back into training with the team. My first race was 20:45, which wasn't good, but I new it was just a start. The next race I got 21:43, which was just shocking to me because I had slowed down a lot, and I felt like I gave it my all, whereas when I got 18:51, it felt effortless. I just did another race and my time was 21:06 and my legs had been heavy like someone put 20lb weights on each ankle. My dad thinks that it's mental, and my coach thinks I just "gave up," but I was really trying as hard as a could. I'm not sure if I might have peaked myself before the season even started but I need some ideas. I've been ice bathing, elevating, not running if anything hurts, reading mental books, warming up, cooling down, and stretching. My workouts are hard but I get through them okay, and long runs are slow to rest up for workouts. Am I lacking endurance? Is there anyway to get better in the 5k this season. Or is my season ruind. We have one more meet this week before districts, then state. Any ideas?