Train Me

So, I told her what everyone said about John Hopkins and I guess she's moved on to Iowa Hawkeyes? What do you know about them? The coach asked if she wanted to come do an official visit. She did an official visit with Lubbock Christian. The Texas Tech coach said he needs a 5:10 mile to talk.

Don't let her rule out Hopkins. Do you think they are attracting the kind of the students they do if they were not safe?

Iowa is a fantastic school and I loved the campus. I do not have much to add about the running programs there these days, so no help there.

Make sure you do a visit in the winter if you are from an area with a warmer climate. That could be a deal breaker. I grew up in Iowa so the weather was just what I was used to. Go Hawks.

For a kid that is undecided about what to study (I don't know if that's the case here), I don't think that you can go wrong by choosing a big school (or a Big Ten school). There are so many students at these campuses that everyone can find somewhere to fit in and something to do.

I went to a smaller school, and I liked it but I think I would have liked almost anywhere that I went. The only people that I have heard say they dislike a school went to really small college. The "make sure you find the right college for you" gibberish that you always hear is nonsense. There are a lot of "right schools" for everyone.

Priorities:

1. Strong academic program for what you study.

2. & 3. What will you study & finances: You need to be able to pay off any student loan debt after school without too much difficulty at the starting salary that you will probably be making. For example, if you want to be a high school teacher, don't go to an expensive private college when there are lower cost state schools with good education programs.

4. & 5. Social life & athletics: You are going to be at this school for 3+ years, and you will need to do something other than study.

Anyway, it's easy to find a good combination of all of these things at larger schools. I would suggest choosing which schools to visit and apply to based on career interests though. No one is going to make a living running.

So, the weekend was both beautiful and bittersweet. The weather was perfect, upper 50s, calm, with just a slow bit of mud from the past few days.

The girls end up coming in second to a team they'd beat all season!

Honey-3rd place with 11:58

AR- 9th place with 12:17

15 yo-30th place with 12:55

KG- 36th place with 13:03

JP-62nd with a 13:22

14 yo-82nd with a 13:37

AJ-86th with a 13:38

They lost 62-80. AJ's race fell apart. My two younger ones got boxed in early and had trouble recovering. Experience on this course would have really helped them. Last year when we got second, there really was nothing the girls could have done to win. They were just the better team. This year they actually are the better team and they just had one bad race on the wrong day.

But none of that seems to have mattered to my senior. She could not stop smiling. And it didn't take her 10 minutes after the race to start asking about indoor track! (she said her new goals were sub 11:40, 2:20, and 5:10) She's got a few more races in November then her high school cross country career is over. Just saying that makes me sad :(

I sprinted all over that course and I never felt my achilles. It still hurts but not any extra. Next race Nov 23rd-5k

I started running on the treadmill again this week. So far my achilles is doing okay.

Wednesday-4.5 @ 5 mph

Thursday-3.1 @ 5.1 mph

Friday- 3.1 @ 5.3 mph

Saturday- 3.1 @ 5.5 mph

Sunday- 2.5 @ 5.7 mph

Sunday was sort of a struggle. Probably because I haven't been running much. Just going to keep doing some easy miles until I feel strong again.

What incline did you have the treadmill set at?

0 and also the incline makes my achilles hurt so I don't want to do that right now.

SlowAFRunnrMom wrote:

0 and also the incline makes my achilles hurt so I don't want to do that right now.

Good thinking. In fact, I think it's better to skip the incline most of the time in favor of speeding up the dreadmill until the effort is where you want it.

This is more for me than you guys because I'll forget.

Honey went out and ran 3 miles on Saturday. Afterward she decided to do a couple of 400s. Previously her best time in the 400 had been 67 hand timed. Last leg of 4x400 (sophomore year). She said she went 69 then 65 from a standing start. She's still not really fast enough for the 400m but I think she might just hit her 800m goal.

Last year the school's best 400m was 1:04.4 and the best 4x400 was 4:12.23. So I guess she's not far off! I'm a little surprised the 4x4 is faster per person than anyone's individual 400. Is that because most of them are flying through the start?

SlowAFRunnrMom wrote:

she went 69 then 65 from a standing start. She's still not really fast enough for the 400m but I think she might just hit her 800m goal.

That's plenty of speed to break 5 minutes for the mile, and 10:40 for 2 miles.

We have two xc 5ks this month and a Christmas road race on Dec 9th. She told me she was going to take a break (except for the races) soon. She won't have any races after that for at least a month.

I always believed she could run them faster, it's just a matter of endurance I guess. Her ferritin was still under 30 last we checked it so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it. I was going to take everyone back for another blood test during that break.

When I had low ferritin my speed was OK but my endurance tanked. If she can get decently over 30-50 she will crush her longer times.

If she ran 65 in a workout now, with proper nutrition and training by spring she could be under 60 and well under 2:20.

So we ran the xc 5k this weekend. It was a blast as always! I ran into a lot of running buddies I've met there over the last few years.

As always running as a family is a mixed bag. Some good, some meh. The open/masters race was first. It was probably in the upper 30s or lower 40s at the time and windy. The 10 year old and I ran together. I really didn't have a great race and the achilles was hurting pretty good again afterwards but it was so worth it.

Loaf with a very slight course PR 26:06 (previous time here 26:17)

I also had a slight course PR 28:06 (28:33)

Not actual PRs for us but I know I shouldn't try and compare courses especially when my PR is from a road race and this was a true winding xc course. I haven't really run much in a month and therefore she hasn't either. Typically IF she runs at all it's with me in the evenings. We will just go for a mile or 2 jog and talk about her day. Otherwise she just runs races during the school year. On top of this, there are just a handful of people in the open race and therefore she had to run this pretty much solo. The next person was over a minute ahead of her.

The 14 yo, 16 yo, AJ, KG and KG all ran in one of the opens together! This is the first time we've managed to get other runners to come along. AJ, KG, and KG have never run a 5k before either. For mine, the last 5k was a year ago at the same race.

14 yo-23:05 (25:41)

16 yo-20:48(23:58)

AJ-21:24

KG-23:45

KG-25:53

These 5 came in 32nd out of 50 teams. I was really surprised that they did so well considering everything. They never have/done train for a 5k, 3 of them have never run one, 1 girl hasn't run in over a month, and it's not even their full varsity squad. They came out and beat 18 BIG schools.

Honey-20:22 (21:28-2 years ago)-In the championship heat

Strategy and experience really got the better of her on this day. Her coach had told her not to come out too fast and just to pace for 6:00 minutes. That's what he thought she was capable of. So she starts off SLOW and is DEAD LAST. When I say dead last I mean she was the very last girl out of hundreds. AND 250m into the race it bottlenecks. She was in dead last for over half a mile. Over half of this race is a path with trees on both sides. Once it was thin enough to start passing people she worked her way up to about the 130th or 140th place. She just ran out of real estate.... only a sprint left and she must have passed 25 or 30 there to end up just outside of the top 100. -111th. She was pretty mad about her performance but I think she learned a lot. I'm sure she'll carry that knowledge into the race this next weekend and use it to get a time she feels is good. In any other race that day she'd have killed it but in the championship race everyone came out sprinting and because of the bottleneck and path that was a BAD strategy but now she knows!

IF she had run with her team they would have been 21st out of 50 teams. (because we just had to know)

Wow, someone said 65 is good enough to break 5:00 in the mile, and another says 65 now is worth sub 60 by Spring. Runners are optimistic. I hope it’s true.

So this weekend was the girls last xc meet together. Probably forever. I'm pretty bummed that it's over. Although, I did hear them talking in the car about going to the same college and running together again.

She had an official visit with Southern Arkansas. It's a beautiful campus and they offered her a full ride but the coach said she'd start off as their best runner. I don't see any reason to go so far away just to be stuck in the same situation she's been in for years.

Anyway, race results. Weather perfect. Cool, no wind. Not sure how accurate my watch is but last week it reported the course as 3.06, this week 3.09. Last week's course was muddy but mostly flat. It bottlenecked badly and had a lot of sharp turns. This week's course was much wider and open but had a huge hill and then a second smaller hill.

Me-28:19- 40th place. Total junk but at least I finished. My achilles was not liking that hill at all and I was practically walking up it.

Loaf-14:34 (3k) 44th place. She was smiling so big I don't think she cared one bit about her time or place. This essentially is the same pace as her 2 mile PR.

14 yo-22:22-81st. I totally missed her finish because I was thinking she'd be close to last week's time.

16 yo-20:52-45th. She fell down and took a chunk out of her knee 2 days before. I was actually surprised she was able to still run. It looked bad bad and kept bleeding through every thing.

Honey-19:49-138th. I'm really proud of her for taking off so much more time but she was NOT HAPPY. She said she felt like she left a lot on the table and no more races to fix it.

Anyway. I feel like everyone except me had a great cross season lol. 6 months to win this bet. No major travel until Jan 3rd so time to get my mileage back where it should be.

Only race remaining this year for me is a Christmas 5k on Dec 8th.

Dream big but train realistically wrote:

Wow, someone said 65 is good enough to break 5:00 in the mile, and another says 65 now is worth sub 60 by Spring. Runners are optimistic. I hope it’s true.

My estimate of her 400 time is based on 1) Fall workout v. spring track competition. That difference alone is worth 2-3 sec. That leaves 2-3 sec to get more fit overall (and just be a 17-year old who will get more mature) and assumes she would specialize with some 400-specific speed work (which is why this is a "can" rather than a "will"). If she trains for the mile/3200 60 would be a tough ask, except maybe as a relay split. Sub-2:20 is not too far of a stretch though, and may be her best event overall.

She wants to know if she should add her 5k time to her NCSA profile, etc or just pretend it didn't happen. Lol. I thought her time was pretty good but I get the feeling she sees it differently.

Depending on your financial situation and your daughter's long-term goals, if any, I would not immediately dismiss the prospect of a full scholarship. Nor should you jump at the first offer.

UPDATED PRs:

17 yo:

10k-46:47

5k-19:49

3200XC-11:58

3200-11:55

3000-11:23

2400 XC-8:40

1600-5:26.00 (77/81/85/83)

800-2:30.46 (73/77)

400-66?

15 yo:

2k steeple-9:27

10k-51:12

5k-20:48

3200XC-12:32

3200:13:14 (93/96/95/99/101/108/106/97)

3000:12:52

2400 XC-9:08

1600-6:04

800-2:43

400-69/70?

14 yo:

10k-58:??

5k-22:21

3200XC-13:18

3200-13:45

3000-12:53

2400 XC-9:28

1600-6:03

1500-6:01

800-2:43

400-69/70?

10 yo:

10k-1:01:51

5k-24:54

2 mile-15:12?

2400- (time trial) 11:16

2400 XC-10:40

1600-6:34.32 (92/102/102/98)

1500-6:44

1500RW: 10:33

800-3:02

400-86

Me

10k-53:45

5k-25:16

2 mile-15:24?

1 mile-7:00

400-87

Definitely not ruling them out just prefer her to stay closer to home. If I were making the decisions she'd take the full ride Texas Tech would give her based on academics alone. Unfortunately it's not my choice.