We are who we choose to be.

AM- Just ran up to the dirt mile and did 6x1000 repeats. They were pretty easy. I hit 4:51, 4:51, 4:51, 4:46, 4:43, and 4:50. These are really fun to do when you have a bunch of guys to talk to the whole time. It's not too hard, it just takes a while to finish. Then we ran back to the school to make 6.5. (half a mile barefoot warmup). I'm not gonna be able to blog the whole rest of the week because I'll be up at camp, but I'll update it when I get back.

High Altitude Camp- Today we got to our campsite and set up camp. We had a bit of relax time and lunch before we headed out on our 4 mile run. It was pretty tough, but really easy compared to all the other runs we did at camp. Our captains talked to us about the camp theme. It's about the attitude not the altitude and about the smileage not the mileage. Pretty good day but I didn't sleep good this night.

High Altitude Camp- Woke up this morning feeling really tired and cold. We went on our 8 mile run which was really hard! Me, Andrew, Cam, and Jake kept up with the longer milers for the first 4 miles and then we slowed down a little on the way back. I feel that we went really well on this run even though it was tough! I think this is the first time I've ran 8 miles at once so far this summer. Our second run today was just an easy 3 miler and was the easiest run we did at camp. We took it pretty slow and went to the lake at the end of it. Today we got our booklets and we took some classes from our coaches. Coach Holt talked to us about goals and daring to go. An example he shared with us was when Nik Wallenda tightroped across the Grand Canyon. Then we talked about some quotes having to do with bravery and courage. One that really stuck out to me was "Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver 5 minutes longer." I think 5 minutes longer is my new motto now! Then coach challenged us to make goals (both for running personally and for the whole team), draw them out, and then share them. For my personal goal, I decided to get a PR of sub-18 minutes by the end of this XC season. My team goal was for us to win region this year. After talking with Holt, we went and had a class with Coach Roberts. He talked to us about The Biologic Law of Training and The Training Unit. In his class we learned a lot about how to train and what the components of training are.

High Altitude Camp- This morning we ran a super hard 5 mile hilly run. I tried my hardest to stay up with the big boys, but I ended falling off quite a bit by the time I was supposed to turn around. I didn't do too shabby though. I was the first level 2 guy to finish the uphill behind Andrew and Nick, then I just stuck with Andrew for the rest of the time. For our afternoon, we ran a 3 miler down this super sick trail, but then we had to run back up which was like heck on earth. I was seriously the hardest 1.5 miles I've ever done. Just constant uphill. I tried to stick with Reed for the uphill part and ended up passing him and then he caught up by the end. In our classes with coaches, Coach Holt had us talk about motivation, confidence, having a mind for success, relaxation, the zone, focus, visualization, talking to yourself, and setting routines. This was probably the most informative class of them all. I learned so much that I didn't know before and has inspired me to try all of the things he has suggested. In Coach Bert's class, we learned about having consistency to build mental toughness. In this, he challenged us to work on being more consistent on a certain attribute when it comes to running. I chose to be more self-confident of myself on my runs. Most of the time, I feel like the pain that I had on my run was all in my head and I need to change that. We also talked about commitments. Paul talked to us about knowing our sport and shared with us some websites and challenged us to learn about a runner we didn't know before. I'm definately going to do that.

High Altitude Camp- Last day at camp. Today was just supposed to be an easy 4 miler. Boy is that an understatement. Coach led us on a trail he'd never done before and it ended up being this super hard, really hilly run. It seemed to go on and on and on. I kept up with the guys for the whole time on this run, but that wasn't an easy task. This whole camp has been so inspiring for me and has made me want to be a better runner than I am now. I have a feeling I've improved so much just over the past few days.

AM- Today Andrew, Cam, Jake, and I all met at Washington Elementary for our tempo. Josh Farish forgot there wasn't organized team practice today so he ran with us (plus some). I was expecting to go on a 7 miler with 2.5 tempo, but Andrew and Cam checked and said it was 5 with 2 tempo. We ran from the elementary school to almost the mall and back, starting and ending our tempo at Harts. This was probably the best tempo I've ever done. I stayed up with Andrew and Cam. We had about a 6:40 average tempo pace, but we got up to like 6 flat pace at the end of it. I didn't even feel very sore or tired by the end of this tempo and it felt pretty easy. I don't think I would have ran this morning if I didn't organize a practice with these guys because 1. I was so tired and 2. I didn't want to run this one on my own.

PM- 3 miles easy. This truly was the easiest run this week despite the 100 degrees with some moderately heavy wind. I decided to just take it as easy as I wanted. I ran the dirt mile/grapevine trails. I had a little sideache on the way back that would usually bug me a lot, but didn't bother me as much as usual... It might be because of the peanut butter bar I ate prior to my run, but we'll never know haha.

OH! I decided to take Coach's challenge and research a runner that I knew nothing about. I looked on some websites and took me a long time to find a runner that I really admired. My runner is Ryan Hall. In his senior year in highschool, he ran a state record time of 4:02.62. He ran at Stanford University. He broke the U.S. half marathon record with a time of 57:54 which killed the previous record. Ryan had the fastest marathon debut by any American, and the fastest marathon ever run by a U.S. citizen with the time of 2:08:24 in London. He ran the fastest marathon by any American with 2:04:58 in the Boston Marathon in 2011. He also qualified to run the marathon in the 2008 Beijing Olympics in 2008.