We are who we choose to be.

THE WARBEAST IS BACK (hopefully for good this time)

AM- Pretty sick morning 4 with Connor Baller and the pv crew (probably a record turnout as well). Super proud of what our guys are accomplishing so far this track season... Especially our younger guys.

PM- 10 warm/cool, 800-1000m@1600 goal pace (full recovery), 2-4x400@3200 pace, 2-4x400@1600 pace, 2-4x400@1600 goal pace. I did okay this workout, but the short day at school kind of threw off my eating schedule and I was running full which is never fun. Alex and I went the full 1000 and hit a 2:49. I don't think I was fully recovered after 10 minutes, but went on with the workout anyways. Went on to do 9 of the possible 12 400s (i don't think anyone could hit all 12 today on the boy's side) at 1:14, 1:14, 1:13, 1:14, 1:10, 1:09, 1:07, 1:07, 1:09. Didn't really feel my best today, but that 1000 gave me confidence that I can run a state qualifying time in the 1600 if I really put my mind to it. Good day. Weights afterward. Also I jumped Megan's van for her afterward.

Shoutout to my man, Skylar for getting his mission call to Sao Paulo, Brazil!

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. Pretty nice morning (meaning it's gonna be HOT this afternoon). Had 9 guys, about 5 or 6 girls, and 2 perky coaches there today. It's a great day to be a panther.

PM- 4 miles and 8x20sec sunrise hills. Felt pretty good but my legs are tired from yesterday. Semi easy day.

K I have to Controversial Cam this up today: What are your thoughts on people flying the Confederate flag?

Why do I ask this?

Today after the youngster meet at PV (where I ran a beast shot put ring), I was walking to my truck and saw that the truck parked next to me had an American flag and a Confederate Flag flying out the back... I thought to myself,"dang that's kind of stupid that that idiot is flying around a confederate flag because of what it stands for." and so I get to my truck and I notice that THE CONFEDERATE FLAG WAS GONE. I looked around and saw these dudes running away from the truck with the flag and I didn't think twice about it... I don't support flying around a Confederate flag anyways. But then I was thinking about how even though I may not like it, that guy has a right to fly his flag whenever he wants because he lives in the good ole USofA. I sat in my truck pondering these things... AND I got out and I ran around trying to find those kids for a good 20 minutes, but they were nowhere to be found and I felt super angry that they would steal this guy's flag. I walked back to my truck and the owner of the other truck was there!!! I talked to him about how I saw some kids steal his flag. He got into his truck, and PULLED OUT A BRAND NEW ONE. He said,"wow those kids will be surprised when they see me driving around with another one." He was swearing up a storm talking about how he was gonna find those kids lol but then he just drove off. Anyways, so what're your thoughts??

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. Legs are so dang tired today. Luckily we have an easier run this afternoon 

PM- Easy 30 minutes and 4x200s. Running the 4x1600 as a workout tomorrow and then racing the 1600 on Friday at the Ultraspire meet. I'm feeling pretty confident that I can state qualify the 1600 after our workout on Monday where I was able to hit 1000 at that pace. My PR was at the PV Dream Mile back in December I think when I got a 4:39. So we'll see if we can't demolish that on Friday!

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. From having a ton of guys on Monday, today seemed pretty disappointing we had like 8 guys: 2 of each grade. Like Noah's ark.

PM- DH distance carnival 4x1600 champions PVHS heck yeah lol. Just did that as a small workout and did about 55 minutes total at the meet.

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. Today started with only 3 guys:me, logan, and Mikey. Like coach said, the guys who show up to morning practice show the most improvement and Mikey and Logan are awesome examples of that: with Mikey getting 10:30ish in the 3200 yesterday (freshman) and logan with like a 2:05 in the 800 (soph). We ended the run with 7 guys (Dallen Mitch Carson and Andrew all showed up late) and those guys are all beasts too.

PM- Hit a bunch of miles at the meet. Raced the 1600 which was supposed to start at 8:30 but then was changed to 8:00, back to 8:30, and ended up being ran at like 8:45... Felt like Hurricane invite all over again ;) but ANYWAYS, my race was going really well, I was in like 4th with 500 meters to go, and pretty much on state qualifying pace... And then I died. I literally felt more tired than I ever had in any 1600 of my life, my legs could not move any faster and started to go a lot slower... Finished like way far back with a high 4:40s (i think) and was not very proud of my performance. Idk if it was because of the race being so late at night or what, but I know this wasn't anywhere near my best. I ran 4:39 in cross postseason, so I think I should be around 4:32 next time. This race was a fluke: not big deal.

AM- easy 10 out from my house through grapevine. Finished hard which made it nice since it's all downhill from the Maverick to my house. I was feeling really bummed about my race the night before and really got thinking about it and decided it really just wasn't my night. I have great races ahead of me, as well as crappy ones, but when all is said and done, you just gotta race the best you can every time and whether that is good or bad doesn't matter as long as you give it your all. And I'm READY to go and kill whatever race Holt has me do at Desert Hills this weekend. I'm ready to give it my all and I'm feeling confident.

AM- 4 miles easy. Good turnout today. Good to see Corbin back from his injury! 

Question of the day: would any of the candidates for POTUS intentionally put the country in danger? We were hardcore debating this on our morning run today.

PM- 10 warm/cool, 6x1200@3200pace 120HRbeat recovery. Hit 3:51, 3:49, 3:09(1000), 3:47, 3:45, 3:43. The times were pretty bad the first 3 and I was feeling dang tired, but my heart rate was never even below a 140 the whole workout. After the 3rd one, coach suggested we take full advantage of the cool down and the longer cool down really gave me the energy to push up top. I was shooting for 3:45 which is close to my 3200 pace. I'd say this was a good workout. Was supposed to do weights afterward but my mom made me pick up my brother from basketball.

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. Made it pretty far today, legs are dead, gotta go to bed earlier tonight.

PM- 4 miles easy Dope Loop (Sandburgs edition). Ran behind Home Depot and Walmart which is somewhere I've never ran before so that was cool. Yoga after with Fiji Mcalpine was dope and relaxing. Totally found inner peace. I wonder if there's any way we can get her to visit our team! That'd be so wow she's epic.

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. It turns out all aspects of every dream are symbolic and can't be literal: according to Mitch's dream interpreting philosophy. For example, if I dreamt that I kissed a girl, it wouldn't mean that I actually wanted to kiss a girl, it would mean that a girl is symbolic of a map and kissing is actually a metaphor for exploring. So me kissing a girl means traveling the world.

PM- 15 warm/10 cool, Coe #1 (100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190, 200@1600-400 pace), 5x10sec hill finishes. Pretty beast workout. I went from about a 17.45 100 to a 28.5 200 at the end. Pretty epic workout, really gets the legs moving by the end. Hills after were pretty fun. Weights after.

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks very fun but my legs are pretty tired. Running the 3200 and the 800 at the DH invite this weekend! Hoping to PR both!

PM- 4 miles easy 4x200s after. Legs feel tight, good conversation on the run. Dallen went OFF at one point about this certain topic.

MY MISSION CALL CAME TODAY AND WILL BE OPENING IT IN EXACTLY 52 MINUTES

ANDD... FORT WORTH, TEXAS SPANISH SPEAKING! I'm so dang stoked! @allip guessed it. she's so epic

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. Pretty epic run! Turns out my mission president is actually in my ward! He just got called a couple months ago and he heads out just 6 days before I do!
 

PM- 6.5 miles at the meet with Dallen and Andrew. Some fun times watching a bunch of the races! Pretty tired though so I got to go to bed early tonight.

AM- 4 miles easy. didn't get much sleep last night. I've been really having a hard time sleeping through the whole night lately...

PM- 10min warm/5min cool, 800@goal1600, 12x400 @(4 3200, 4 1600, 4 goal 1600)pace (2 min recovery, 4 between sets). I hit 2:19 (little slow) 74, 75, 74, 74, 71, 70, 69, 69, 69, 68, 68, 65. Me, Carson, Mitch, and Dallen had a sweet group going and we just got in the groove and hit them all pretty much perfectly. Coach said we could pick it up on the last 100 on the last rep and that explains the 65 (i'm no 4:20 right now).

Weights afterwards-bench, leg legs, squats.

GOALS FOR THIS WEEK: GET MORE SLEEP, EAT LESS JUNK, DRINK MORE WATER, KISS A GIRL

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. We have some salvajes on our team. Woke up at about 4:00am and couldn't fall back asleep! Why is this happening?!

PM- 30 minutes easy and then 5x10sec hills. Pretty nice easy run. Good day. Alex the Lion said some innappropriacies in front of little Brian Richardson so that was gross. Learned today I get to wear a cool black cord and get an epic watch at graduation so that's sick.

AM- 4 miles easy again. Good morning run, but this sleep thing is getting ridiculous. I wake up at 4am and am unable to go back to sleep. Idk what hell is, but I'm guessing it's being tired all the time without being able to sleep.

PM- 15 warm/cool, 15 progressive tempo (5:45-5:30), 2x300s. Pretty good workout today, despite the Hellish heat. Wasn't very killer, but did get the legs moving pretty good. Hit a :44 and then a :42 on the 300s. Trying to get to that magic :40 one of these times. Weights afterward.

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks

PM- 4 miles easy by myself because I went and applied for my passport after school. Can't wait to learn some Spanish in Mexico! Ran over on lower grapevine and there's some development going on there. Amazing!(sarcastic amazing)

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks. It was so weird. We saw a deer run across the street by Artic circle and run into the revine. Then we heard a sound to our right and it was another deer stuck between the barrier to the freeway and the fence that fences off the freeway. It was hardcore freaking out. Nick stopped to stretch while the rest of us ran on, we heard a big THUMP sound and it turns out a car hit it on the freeway. Demolished the front of the car and very likely killed the deer. HAPPY EARTH DAY.

PM- RACE- warmed up a few minutes, found out my impressive 4:52 at DH earned me a spot in the second slowest heat of the 4 heats. I decided I was going to draft off a guy the first lap (the wind was raging) and then just take it from there and maybe get like in the low 40s. Race started so slow, and I'm impatient, so I took the lead after like 150 meters and tried to gap it so nobody could draft off me (again the wind was killer). Came by 400 at 1:10 and was like oh crap it's slow, but let's see what we can do. It was all by myself for the whole rest of the race and i came across at 4:41.96 so an okay time for being by myself in the wind. To put it in perspective, I took 11th overall (tied 11th Jensen lambert to the hundredths), and would have won the second fastest heat. It's kind of fun to just go out and run. Shouldn't have put myself in the situation to be in a slower heat.

MEET- 6 miles easy just with Dallen and Andrew and around the meet. Excited for Orem next week

AM- 4 miles easy. Pretty chilly compared to last week. Washed my truck on saturday... too bad it's going to rain today lol.

PM- 20 min warm/cool, 6x300s@current 800pace. This workout wasn't too killer, but definitely was one that got the legs moving. Since my 800 isn't really that fast, my times were around 46-48.75 for the 6 of them. It was so epic running in the very light rain. Pretty good workout, weights afterwards. Debuted my new Boa Texas flag shorts. They're probably my favorite running shorts now. Boa makes good ones.

Fun Interesting Thing: I read today that Richard Nixon started off his political career by responding to a southern california newspaper ad put in by wealthy republicans. It said something like "wanted: somebody to run for congress"

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks.

PM- 4 miles easy into Washington about to the church on telegraph. Pretty beast easy run after doing some yoga with Fiji Mcalpine. We talked a lot about the new 3A high school that's gonna be running by 2018, Crimson High School. We were all saying it's probably going to be the new 3A sports powerhouse, but who knows. The mascot Titans is kind of stupid and I would much prefer like Gilas, Rattlesnakes, just anything actually cool... We had a good laugh at Paul who jumped so bad when a car (train) honked at us.

AM- Coe 2, 15 warm/cool. Did our workout in the morning and I went from 35 (200) to a 45 (300) in 20 meter increments. I hit my time on every one. Pretty epic workout.

I was thinking about how like when you drive drunk when you're in a car accident, because your body remains so relaxed, you have a smaller chance of getting injured than if you were tense and sober. Same kind of thing as if you were driving drowsy. And then I was thinking about how this workout as well as a lot of my races are in the morning and I feel like I perform a lot better than if it were a typical afternoon race or workout. I wonder if it's because my body is more relaxed and less tense and stressed as if I were a drunk driver. 

PM- 4 miles easy Washington. COACH HOLT IS BACK! He totally ran with us for the first time in forever and it was delightful. Like having that guy around. Great coach.

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks.

PM- 9.4 miles easy and then striders. Longest distance that we've had for a while and it was pretty chill. Went down 2450, into the fields, down Sandia, north on wash fields drive, then extended our loop onto the squaredesac, then back to the high school. It was fun to run with the guys. Heading up north for Orem tomorrow! Should be lit.

AM- 4 miles easy Starbucks.

PM- 4 miles then 4x200s at Orem high school

RACE- woke up and headed to Orem. 28 guys in my heat and I got out in the very back. Just literally could make no moves, sprinted hard at the end and was like 9th in the heat. Not the best race, but it was okay because I felt like I had a lot left after. I'll get it next time. The 3200 went absolutely terrible, can take no positives from it straight off the bat except that I can almost literally not get any worse. I've ran tempos faster. My legs were just wrecked for some reason. I only got like 4 hours of sleep last night and the fact that I did the 1600 earlier might have played a part.

I make it sound like I have bad days with my running, and I know a thing or 2 about having awful races. I am in no sense the fastest guy on the track. But I look back through the past 4 years and I could see little 8th grade me being in absolute disbelief of the things I've accomplished with my running. I never believed I could run even a sub-9 minute mile: let alone a sub-4:45 or a sub-10 3200. Nobody could have foresaw that I could be running 2, let alone 12 or 13 miles, in one run. The mere fact that I'm here on a RUNNING BLOG, tracking actual mileage, is a miracle in my mind. I have proved that I can do things I once thought to be impossible. I have come a long ways, and I still have a long ways to go. I wasn't born to run. I had no desire to run. No day is bad. Every day is just a step in the direction of my eventual success. Just gotta keep plugging in miles, putting in work, doing the best that I can, and then I can know that I can fly. Peace out FRB.