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| (2nd Place Women's Club Team) |
The last few weeks have been pretty busy for me but right now I am starting my downtime from running so I can finally update you on what has been going on. I will start with my trip to Omaha, NE for the USATF Club National Championships.
The weekend after the Olympic Trials I was back on a plane traveling to Omaha, NE. I would lie if I told you I was thrilled to be going. My body and mind were tired but I knew once I got around my teammates it would be a fun trip. I was set to leave Thursday and upon waking had a voicemail from American Airlines stating I had been moved to a different flight due to a delay. After an hour of phone calls and getting bumped around from flight to flight I finally was set to fly out and arrive at 11:30pm the day before the meet. Luckily there weren’t any other problems and I arrived in Omaha and made it to the hotel around midnight.
The time difference made it tough for me to fall asleep but I eventually did and slept in as long as I could. I decided to do an easy two mile shake out and was unpleasantly surprised by the heat. It was already in the 90s and it was only 10:30am. I stayed indoors in the wonderful air conditioning then headed to the track that afternoon.
After the Olympic Trials the last thing I wanted to do was run another steeple chase. My body was tired, my right Achilles was very sore and my left knee was causing me a lot of pain. I had run a lot of steeples throughout the season and I could tell my body was in need of a break. Originally I was going to race the 1500m, 5k and one relay but after talking with some of the Club Members I could tell they really wanted me to do the steeple.
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| (Club National Steeple) |
I had until an hour before the race to decide whether I was going to scratch or not and then last minute I decided to race. My teammates were very supportive of my decision not to race, they knew what a tough season I already had had and so I think they were surprised when they saw me lining up to race.
I took it as easy as I could during the race but in a steeple no matter how easy you run you still have to jump 35 times (7 of those through the water pit) and this is not easy on your body. It was extremely hot, 100+ degrees, maybe even hotter with the heat coming off the track. On my warm up run I had put ice bags under my hat, ice in my sports bra and had wet my shirt all in an attempt to keep my core temperature down. It helped some but within a few minutes the ice was melted and I was roasting!
This whole season I have been very focused on the steeple. I know the splits I need to be at to run certain times. During this steeple I did not want to hear any of my splits, I only wanted to run for the win and the 10 points for my team. I normally do not like tracks where the water jump is on the outside. I am not sure why, maybe because I rarely do them but I was happy to see that the water jump in Omaha was on the outside. This meant my splits would be completely different than what I was used to so I would not “know” exactly where I was at in comparison to my PR.
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| (1500m pack at Club Nationals) |
I ran really smooth over the barriers and won the race. I ran a time that was a lot slower than what I had been running all year but it did not matter. Even though I did not run that fast I was still tired. The heat and travel were definitely not helping. An hour later I ran the 1500m. I ended up getting 6th and again it was a tough race for me. My legs just would not turn over. I was not loading up or breathing too hard but I felt like I just could not run.
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| (With my good friend Jane Larson as we try to cool off post race) |
That night I got a good dinner and went to sleep only to lie in bed for hours with sleep evading me. I had the 5000m in the morning and I think I dozed off around 3 or 4am. When my alarm went off I had maybe rested for 3-4 hours. My teammate Jane and I had a race plan to try and switch off leads every 1km. We had never done anything like this and figured it would be fun and a way to help each other out. Leading up to the race I knew the originally pacing plan was going to be too fast. We decided to slow it down but when the race started found ourselves going even slower than that. I was exhausted at the start. I managed to get 4th place. Our team went 1-4. I just made sure no other teams passed me so we could get the max number of points.
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| (Feeling the heat in the 5000m) |
After the 5k I was at a loss for what had just happened. I felt horrible. I felt like my body could not run. It was just an overall fatigue. I almost started crying and had no idea why. Looking back I know it was due to the long season. This was the first time in a long time I have ever gotten to this point of mental and physical exhaustion. I headed back to the hotel after the race to stay out of the sun. Later in the afternoon I went back to the track and ran the 1200m leg of the Distance Medley Relay. Those were the toughest 3 laps for me but I got through it and our team won the DMR for the second year in a row.
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| (Women's DMR Champions again!) |
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| (Jane, Will and I showing off our guns) |
I was so thankful to be done racing at this meet. Our women’s team managed to get 2nd place! Which I believe is the highest finish for Club Northwest’s women’s team ever. It was great. That night I hung out with my teammates and had a blast getting to know some of them better.
The next morning we got up after very little sleep and headed to the airport. Upon arriving we were informed that we had a plane but no pilots. Their flight last night had been delayed so they had to wait a certain amount of time before they were allowed to fly. This rule makes perfect sense to me but it was really annoying that American Airlines didn’t tell us this before arriving at the airport. We were delayed two hours in Omaha, NE then I was informed that I would have an 8 hour lay over in Texas. This was the straw that broke the camels back and I was ready to cry. I called and called and was put on hold but eventually was put on a flight without an 8 hour layover. Later the gate attendant at the airport managed to get me on the same flight as my teammates to Texas and then on an earlier flight to Seattle. I was very impressed with her especially because of all the work she had to do with an entire flight being delayed so many hours.
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| (Delayed in the airport)
It felt great to finally get back to Seattle and over the next week I did a lot of sleeping. My last race was set for July 20th in Billings, MT for the Big Sky State Games Montana Mile. All I had to do was hang on for another couple of weeks and then it was time for me to listen to my body and let it rest.
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