Off To College I Go!

This Sunday night, April 17^th, I went up to High Point University to get in a fast 5K on the track.  When we arrived to the campus that afternoon I was taken away by how beautiful the campus was.  As we made our way to the track, I stared out the window the whole time looking at the university campus. 

When we parked at the track and got out I was bursting with excitement about how perfect the day was. When we went into the stands I was amazed by the track it looked awesome and I couldn’t wait to run on it.  My dad and I then went to check in at the tent.  I found out that I was assigned lane 1.  Everything was going perfect.  As we headed back to the stands we ran into Caitlyn, Jordan, and Meagan, I was really happy since I did not know that they would be there.  After talking with them for a little while we saw Jenna and were able to say “Hi”, since she was busy running around doing a great job of running the meet.

We watched some of the races and cheered for the runners.  Then I saw my grandma and gave her a hug.  I was excited to see her and on top of that, it was her birthday.  After talking with her for a while, I went and started my warm up for the race.

I went to final check in and picked up my lane number.  I went onto the track, switched my shoes, and put the number on, as my excitement was building.  I went onto the infield and did my strides and drills as nerves mixed into my excitement.  Then we got lined up, the announcer called us to the line and the gun fired.  We went off and Meagan took the lead getting me off on pace.  The first mile went very smoothly with Megan pacing me, we hit 5:20, right on plan.  I am very grateful to her for driving to High Point to pace me for the first mile.  But soon after I started getting tired as I got deeper into the race.  Laps 8, 9, & 10 were really hard as I struggled not to slow down.  I hit 2 miles in 10:51.  With 600 meters to go I pushed to speed up.  I was 16:28 at 3 miles and then the last 200 meters was really tough, but as I rounded the turn into the final straight away I saw my little sister Rose trying to get on the track, this made me smile and I sprinted with all I had left.  I crossed the line at 17:06, a new PR for me and I got the win.  It was not as fast as I had hoped, but when you give all you got and get a new PR and win, you cannot complain. 

I was given a bouquet of flowers for winning.  I gave them to my grandma, because I got the PR on her birthday.  I was so excited that I got a PR, that I texted a friend as soon as I got to the car.  The meet was amazing and I had a wonderful time.  What an awesome start to Spring Break!

A New PR For Me!

Last Saturday, March 26^th, I ran a 5K on the track at Providence Day School in Charlotte, NC.  The Charlotte Running Club (CRC) was trying to break the Guinness World Record for the fastest 100 by 5K relay.  I was lucky enough to run a leg of the relay, because who would not want to break a world record.  When I arrived it was raining and cold, I wasn’t happy about this.  The past 3 weekends had been beautiful, what happened, why did it have to rain this weekend, why not next weekend? As I stepped out of the car I could see the tents set up for timing and hanging out in.  After I said hi to my dad, who had come out earlier to support all of his runners, I went to the press box to keep warm and dry.  I got to chat with Caitlin, Aaron, and John and watch a few of the runners complete their legs of the relay.  Then my dad came up to let me know it was time to warm up.  As I did my warm up, I just kept getting more and more excited.  As I did my drills and got ready to go to the starting line felt pumped.  I was not nervous at all!

Once I grabbed the baton, I took off.  The adrenaline I felt over took me the first lap and ran too fast (74 – Yikes!).  But who wouldn’t be super excited?  After the first lap was able to get back on pace, I enjoyed having people cheering for me every 200 meters as well as Megan, Jordan, and Catlin cheering from the infield.  It really helped me keep going when I would get tired.   About halfway through I started to feel that first lap and started feeling tired.  Mike Kahn was able to help me keep pushing through the pain when he ran across the field with a boom box blasting; the sudden noise scared me and I jumped out of my skin which gave me a jolt to keep going.  As the laps continued to click off, I could feel myself slowing down slightly, so I intentionally pushed harder as the rain kept coming down.  With 600 to go I gave another big push, kicking up water as I when making my butt and back wetter than it already was.  With one lap left I heard the bell and everyone cheering, I sprinted hard to the finish and handed off the baton.  I was so glad I did not drop the baton.  When my dad told me I had gotten a PR, I was ecstatic.  I thought if I could run 17:08 (17:09.1 officially) on an asphalt track by myself and in the pouring rain, just think what I could run on a good day with competition.  They race got me wanting to run a race on the track to see if maybe I could break 17:00 for a 5K in my next race.

My First Half Marathon

(photo by Bill Shires)

Hey everyone, hope you all had an amazing weekend, I certainly did!

This Saturday, March 12th, I ran my first half marathon, the Alston & Bird Corporate Cup Half Marathon in down-town Charlotte.  I was so excited all week in anticipation of the race, I just couldn't wait!  My goal was to try and hold a 6:15 pace, as that is the pace I do my aerobic threshold tempo runs at.  I knew I could handle that pace pretty comfortably for the first 6-8 miles, the last 5-7 miles would be the unkown though.

When the day of the race finally came, I was so ready.  I decided to wear my long sleeve Charlotte Running Club shirt as it a little cold at the beginning of the race.  I had also decided earlier in the week that I would wear my hair in pig-tail braids in honor of Sally Meyerhoff who had passed away last Tuesday in a tragic bike accident.  She also wore her hair like that when she raced.  So after my mom braided my hair I was ready to head to the race.

At the race I did a short warm-up run and some drills and headed to the starting line.  At the start of the race they had group prayer and I thought to myself  "Sally this one is for you".   Then the gun went off and I started on my first half marathon.  The first 3 miles went by pretty quick and were pretty easy as I settled into my pace.  At 3 miles my Dad jumped in and passed me by on his bike and would jump ahead of me a mile or so at time and wait for me to come by so he could cheer.    I felt really good during the first half of the race, as I passed 5 miles in 30:48 and still felt comfortable.  Somwhere between miles 8 and 9 we went up a big hill by Myers Park High School and once I got to the top I could start to feel it.  It was starting to get hard.  But I remembered Sally and a book I recently read ("The Running Dream" by Wenderlin Van Drannen) about a high school runner who lost her lower leg in an accident and started running again with a prostetic leg.  It reminded me how lucky I was to have the opportunity to race like this, so I put my head down and pushed on. 

(photo by Mom)



At 10 miles (61:48) I was still ahead of goal pace and really appreciating all the fan support we were getting on the course.  I was able to push the next mile or two pretty well and then we got to east Moorehead Street and the final 1.5 mile climb back up towards down-town.  My dad had told me to take that section one hill at a time (there are 3 hills with a short break between each) and that is what I did. It seemed like on each hill I saw someone I knew who was cheering for me and that definately helped.   Finally with a half mile to go the hills where done and I turned onto the final straight away.  I could see the crowds cheering the runners on and it definately helped having them there to get me to the finish line.  When I crossed the line I looked at my watch and saw 1:21:15, I was estatic!  That was a 6:12 per mile pace, 3 second per mile better than I had hoped for.  I had won the women's division of the race and beat my goal in my debut at the distance!  This was even better than I had hoped for.  Like I said, I had an amazing weekend!  :o)

My Trip To San Diego



This past weekend my Dad and I went to San Diego for me to run in the USATF National XC Championship.  We left Thursday and came back home on Sunday.  It was definately a crazy 4 days!

Thursday didn't start out as planned.  We were going to fly from Charlotte to Houston and then from Houston to San Diego.  However in the middle of the night before we left, our flight from Houston to San Diego got cancelled.  Luckily my Dad happened to be awake and was able to get us booked on a later flight, but we'd have a 6 hour lay-over instead of 2 hours.  Things hadn't started out as planned but we made the best of it including watching Princess Bride on his computer in the airport terminal to help pass the time.

We finally made it to San Diego and got checked into our hotel by 9:00 PM west coast time.  Not long after we checked in it was lights out and off to sleep, we were both exhausted from the day of travel.

On Friday, my dad and I got to pick up my race packet and t-shirt in the morning and then around 11:30 we went next door to the course and I was able to run it a few times (it was a 2k loop) to see how I liked it.  The loop was all grass, flat the first 1k and rolling the second kilometer.  I really liked it and was excited about the race the next day.

Later in the afternoon, around 2:00, dad and I met with Jonathan Beverly the Editor-In-Chief at Running Times.  Mr Beverly is currently writing a story on kids and running mileage and was very nice to ask to for our input.  He was very nice our conversation was fun.   Afterwards Dad and I hung around the room until dinner time then went to Subway to eat.  At 7:00 we went to the technical meeting and got the low-down on the race.

The next morning was finally the day of the race, pretty exciting!  When I woke up I jogged the 2k course once as a shake-out jog to get the blood pumping (not that that was a problem).  We relaxed in our rooms the rest of the morning watching the women's master race on the internet and saw Colleen De Reuck dominate the rest of the field.  Once the masters men's race started we headed over to the race.  At the race we watched the remainder of the race and cheered for Jonathan as he came by each time (it was a 4 lap race).  After the Masters race, my dad and I bumped into David and Jane Monti, from Race Results weekly and NYRR, how we had met this past summer when they brought me up to run in the NYRR's Women's Mini 10k.  It was awesome to see them again and they were sweet as always. 

About 30 minutes before my race started I started my warm-up jog and started getting excited.  After the jog I did my high-knee and butt-kick drills and changed into my racing flats.  Then I went into the starting area and did a few strides on the starting straightaway.  After wishing me luck and helping me find spoton the line, Dad headed down the straightaway to find a good stop to cheer from.  The announcer started to get us all ready to go then we had a delay because  the TV channel covering the race had to go to commercial.  Then as we got ready again we had another delay when one of the competitors realized she forgot to put on her timing chips. 

As we kept having delays I started thinking about the teams around me and my comeptitors and started to feel intimidated, which is not what I wanted to have happen.  Then the gun went off and I didn't get out fast enough and got caught in back of the pack.  The rest of the first lap of the race I felt good and was moving up places pretty consistently.  The second lap I started to get tired and wasn't passing people as often and by the half way point I was starting to feel pretty tired and discouraged.  I wasn't where I thought I would be at this point.  At the beginning of the 3rd lap I should have started pushing and gotten agressive as was my plan, however I didn't, I was behind and tired and just went into tempo run mode.  I never put myself into the race for the top like I know I was in shape to do, so once it got hard I just wasn't motivated to push it in.   I stayed at tempo pace until 100 meters to go then sprinted it in to hold off a few girls, but that was a little to late to change gears.  Once I finished I was very disappointed in myself.  I had blown a great opportunity to show everyone who I was.  My finishing time was 23:11 and I had finished 19th.  That time is equivalent to a slow tempo workout for me so I was sad with how I had performed.

I stayed after my event to watch open women's and men's races, which was awesome.  I cheered for Shalane F, Molly H, Lisa K, Magda, and Kara G. during their race.  I was incredibly impressed by the dominance Shalane showed the rest of the field during her race, to win the championship.  During the Men's race my dad and I cheered for Abdi the whole race and were very impressed by Brent V when he broke away from the large pack and won the race.  Also while watching the men's race I had the privilidge to meet the 2010 Foot Locker Champ Aisling Cuffe (who also won the race I was in).  She was super nice and was great to meet her.

Afer the races were over my dad and I headed back to the hotel.  On the way back we bumped into Greg McMillan and my dad introduced me to him.  My dad had recently met Greg at the Super Distance Summit that Coach Simmons at Queens Univserity put on in Charlotte in January.  Mr. McMillan was very nice and my dad tells me he is a very good coach as well.

Back at the hotel I had some thinking to do.  I needed to down load my thoughts from the race and learn what I could from them.  Dad was great in helping me do this.  We spent alot of time talking and coming up with a game plan to help me be more consistent in my races.  After our talk I was excited about our plans and feeling better about everything.  Even though the race didn't go as I would have like it to go, what was done was done, and all I could do now was learn what I could from it. 

Now that my trip is done it was time to go home the next morning.  Our flights went smoothly for the most part and we got home about when we had planned.  Just in time for bed and to ready for another week at school and my regular routine.  Report cards come out this week!

Time Trial Success

Dad calling splits during my time trial

Hey everyone!  I have decided to start a blog to keep everybody (who is interested) up to date on what's going on in my life.  This is the first time I have ever written a blog, so lets see how it goes - hopefully it goes well!  :)

Today (Jan 15th), I planned on running a 5k time trial on the cross country course at McAlpine Park to prepare for the 2011 USATF Jr. XC Championships in San Diego in three weeks from today.  However, the weather had a different idea.  Thanks to my running friends, my dad and I learned that the snow that fell on Monday hadn't melted yet at McAlpine and most of the trail was covered in snow and ice still.  Now, I didn't feel like falling on my butt during my time trial, so my dad and I had to change plans.  We decided to move my time trial to Community House Middle School track.

I went to the track late morning with my mom and dad.  I did my 6 lap warm-up with strides, switched into my super fast shoes (racing flats), then did my drills.  I took off my sweats and we all walked over to the 200 meter point, where I would start.  After sharing high 5's with my parents, I got focused on the task at hand.

I lined up at the starting line and waited.  My dad did the 3 command start, "runners to your mark, set, GO!", then I was off.  There was a headwind on the finishing straightaway and a then it was at my back on the starting straightaway.  So I had to push on the finishing straightaway so I wouldn't slow down and then I would pick-up speed on the starting straightaway.

The first 7 laps I felt comfortable running and was on pace.  My splits were 78.0, 82.1,83.2,83.1,83.1,83.4 and 83.3 seconds.  Then it started getting harder and I slowed down to 84.6 and 85.2 on laps 8 ad 9.  I was really starting to hurt now but was determined not to let my pace keep slowing, so I pushed and ran 84.7 and 85.4 for laps 10 and 11.  That's when my dad said, "600 left, you can do it!"  So, I started picking up speed, pushing to go faster, as I came upon one lap to go, my mom "rang" the imaginaary bell to signal one lap left and I kept repeating "one lap left" in my head.  I ran 83.0 seconds for the 12th lap.

That's when I took off, I only had 200 meters left.  As I rounded the turn, I changed gears and tried my best to sprint to the finish line (it's pretty hard to sprint at the end of a time trial).  I ran the last 200 meters in 38.7 seconds.  As I crossed the I looked at my watch and saw 17:18.2.   I was thrilled and tired at the same time.  My time trial had turned out to be a big success! :)  Now on to San Diego!

Well, I hope you liked my first blog.  I will try and one or two every month to keep everyone updated on what I am up to.  Bye for now!