Well, the indoor season has come and gone. My first university track season was one full of awesome experiences and one which I really enjoyed. However, I always like to take away some negative parts of every season in hopes of correcting them in future seasons. This season had one big drawback that I would like to talk about.
This last indoor season, I feel that I was easily in the best shape that I had ever been in. My body was really able to adjust well to the marginal mileage increase and no injuries were in sight. The base that I had accumulated from the previous cross country season really helped me spring forward into track. Additionally, I began to hit up the weight room twice a week consistently which made me feel much stronger and capable of running fast.
For all of this, I was rewarded and was able to get a PB in all of the events that I had raced in. I opened up the season by going sub 9 in the 3k by a big margin achieving an 8 second improvement on my previous best. I then decided to turn my training towards the 1000m as it is early on in my university career and I want to work on my speed as much as I can now. This showed to be successful as I ran sub 2 in the 800m for the first time and a decent 1000m time on a flat 200m track. In my final race, I was able to narrowly dip under my former 1500m best and improved it by about .75 of a second. Obviously, I should be happy and gracious of these improvements on my personal bests, especially since it was only indoors and all my previous personal bests were outdoors. However, there is still way more I desired to achieve.
According to my own beliefs and how I felt, I was in way better shape than the times that I ran this indoor season. I know it is hard to judge how fit someone is based on workouts, but I am about 99.999999999 % sure I was in better shape. Other than the opening 3k of the season (and maybe my 800m PB), I felt like I did not run the times that I desired and set out to run each race. After each and every race, I was disappointed and always left the track wanting more out of myself. With racing 5 weekends in a row, this started to really get on my nerves and every time I toed the line I felt as if I had even more pressure to perform. Thus, I was psyching myself out before the gun even went off and putting myself at a less likely chance to have a great race. This was by far the most frustrating part of the season.
Within each and every race, I also feel that I really lacked the confidence that I needed to succeed and do well. I would get in situations where I would be hesitant and not willing to get onto the pace that I needed to get the fast time I was going for. Even when I would get out fast enough, once the pace died down mid way or towards the end of the race, I would make tactical errors like not passing people I should have to keep the pace where I wanted it to be. I know this is all within the process of learning how to race correctly and I am still new to my university career but I am still disappointed from all of these mistakes. Previously, I never really had consistent problems with racing on the the track and the tactics that come along with it. I remember back in grade 9 when I first began to run track on the competitive level, I would just go out and not worry about any pressure I put on myself and would just run as fast as I could. That's where I want to get back to.
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| Ran a 4:22 this day, there were no more smiles after that :( |
After taking a break from the hard stress that racing puts on our bodies, I am really excited to get back to racing and chasing the goals that I want to hit. I don't want to think about any specific times that I would love to run in this upcoming outdoor season. I think that personally, focusing on times is really a big detriment for my performances and how I compete in the race setting. I want to feel confident before and during every race that I run. Afterwards, I want to be able to assure myself that I went as hard as I could and left nothing else to be desired out on the track. I think that these are some valuable goals that if I can achieve them and focus on them, the times will come. All I need is one breakout race and I feel that the snowball effect will occur and an avalanche of PB's that reflect my fitness will come my way.
As of now, I have been running consistent mileage the last four weeks and have done a couple weeks of tempos to prep before getting back on the track. I am racing a local 5k, The Spring Thaw, on Sunday, April 8th and I hope to run a time that I am happy with and also get the look of the back of the leaders heads cemented in my memory forever (Thanks Cyr, Falky and Mantis :p). Should be fun to run a nice and not so meaningful race with some teammates.
I really wish that I could have written more posts on this blog during the season but with school and training, its hard. Even as I write this post right now in the Leddy Library, I really should be studying for my upcoming finals that are a stone's throw away. After finals finish, I hope to post at least once a month on this blog about how running is going and general thoughts that I have. I really enjoy writing a lot and feel that with the more experience that I get, the better I become at the craft itself.
For now, the track is about to double in size and get a bunch more windier. We'll see where it takes all of us in the upcoming months
-Simone