Final post

I don't know how i feel about this whole blogging thing. I can tell you for sure when we first started it i hated the idea. I thought it was stupid and really pointless and didn't really understand why we were going to do it. But once we started to blog more it seemed that i was starting to like it. I liked it because i chose to write about something that i actually enjoyed to write about. There were many times that i didn't want to blog because it was just going to take up some of my time that i could have been doing other homework. And sometimes i felt like i was having a mind blank and couldn't find anything to write about..thoughts were the times i hated blogging.

Also one good thing i found about blogging was that when ever i just wanted to rant a rave i could go and blog about it. I know that many people didn't read my blog so i didn't really mind. It felt like it was somewhere i could go and just let it all out. One bad thing about blogging in sometimes in the same post i felt like i was repeating myself. i didn't mean to do it all of the time, but i got stuck and was saying the same thing over and over. But over all i didn't hate blogging it was something different to do and kind of fun. But i could live without doing it.

we are going to state

As i have talked about before we are going to state this week. I am very excited, but also very very nervous. this will be my first time running an open event at a place like this. It is a lot different being in a relay and running with people then just running an event all by yourself. that means all the pressure is put on you do perform well and do good. My open event that i will be running the the 200 open on Thursday afternoon. that day is going to be a very long day..we are meting here at school at 6am in the morning that way we can get up to the drake stadium in time for Daysha to run her 100 meter dash. from then on i have my 200 then that will all we will be running for Thursday. The rest of my races will be held on Friday. I am scared about having all 3 of my relays the same day, but i am sure it will be fine as i have ran that before in a regular meet. I will do what my dad says "go out there and do your best and don't worry about it."

I have been to state the last 2 years and kind of know what to expect so i am really excited because it is always a big adrenaline rush starting the race and seeing how we finish off. It is also very nice to fish in the top 3 because then we would place and received a medal. Having a medal from state is always something to be proud of. It makes me feel like all the hard work i put in in that season payed off and accomplished something.

almost done

The year for track is winding down. It makes me rally sad to think about it. Track is my favorite sport. And the people that i run with are just like my family. As much time as i spend with them it is like they are my real family i spend more time with them then my family!! From the 5 hour long track meets with going to Perkins after and not getting home till late. We do spend a long time together. But it is nice because you can get closer to people and build a Strong relationship with them. But then again it just makes things harder when they leave. For example Daysha on my team i have ran track with her for 3 years now. We run all the same events and are each other competition. We push each other in practice and it is good because we only make each other better in the end. This year she will be leaving me and i will not have anyone like that next year. It is going to be hard but i know that i will meet other people and still have as much fun.

This year was one of my most successful years of track I hope that i can carry that on to next year and have an even better year. Maybe i will have better times and go to drake in a individual event. That is what my goal is..and i know if i work for it and train right that i can do it. i will miss this years track team very much..they were/are amazing!!

Districts

Last Friday was districts. As for the weather it wasn't the best raining off and on through out the night..but it wasn't storming horribly or thundering and lightning. Which is good because we would have gotten thrown off and distracted form what we were supposed to be thinking about. There were a couple other districts that didn't run on Friday because of the weather and they ran on Saturday instead. And the good thing is that on Saturday it was extremely windy. So there fore their times were all slower and made us qualify in all four events that i ran in!! Yes i made it in every event which would be the 4x100, 4x200, sprint med and the 200 meter dash. There is one other girl going the in 200. And daysha going in the open 100 also. Along with the distance medley going to state. And for the field events our high jumper and long jumper are both going to state. I am very proud of how everyone did. Even thought it was rather crappy weather out we still ran good and were able to make it to state in nine events. That is about how many events we have go every year in state.

This will be my first time running an open event at state and i will admit i am very nervous. I know that i should treat it just like any other meet, but i can't help myself because it is State and there are so many people there watching you. But maybe it will be a good thing to be extra nervous because it will just make me run faster..lets hope!!

going to state

as i have already talked districts is this Friday which is tomorrow. as it get closer and closer i keep on getting more and more nervous. i can't help myself but think about it every day and when ever i have free time that is what i am thinking of. I have been to state all of my high school years and have loved it. Returning to state and showing everyone that isn't expecting Kennedy to place well or even do good that they are wrong. We have worked really hard for everything and we think of this as finally our time to shine and show everyone how hard that we have worked and how much we really deserve to be here. I think another reason the team is hoping to do well at districts is because we want to show our coach that we really want this and to make him proud of his team that he has trained all season. to show him that the late nights he stayed up trying to figure out who was going to be in what relay or what the next workout for us would be in order to make us better and faster.
But in order to prove all of this to coach it all come down to performing well at districts tomorrow. I have my four usual events. I can not wait. I know that we are going to have god competition here, but i know that we have gone against bigger and better teams before so this is our chance to do well and place in the top 2 in most events. I know that at least half of our relays can place in the top 1 or 2. We will do it for ourselves and coach.

This Friday we have Districts. I can honestly say that i am very nervous for this meet. I don't know whats the outcome will be. I am running all the same events that i usually run, but seeing how we did under a lot of pressure last Friday i don't know how we are going to do when put under the pressure saying that you have to do good in this meet in order to go to state. For us to go to state We have to get first or second in the race and if not first or second they take the next top 12 runners out of our conference.
I know that we can do this, but it is the matter of having ourselves mentally prepared for each and every race and not rushing ourselves into things. We Will have to take every race for what it is. I know that we all want to do well at this meet and make it into state not just for ourselves, but for coach and to show him how much we rally want it and how much work we put into all of it to do it for him. He has worked his butt of this year to make us a decent team and to make sure we have our solid relay teams. I think that we can do it. If we are to have "picture perfect hand offs" on Friday we will make it to state.
The weather is supposed to be nice and it is going to be a good day out. That will make things even better for all of us. Also We have had our hard times with races and not doing so well and feeling really bad for it that with performing well.

All we have to do now is go out there an actually prove what we can do!!

MVC

Last Friday we had our big MVC meet of the year. We were hoping to do pretty well. Considering on how well we had done in the previous meets placing 1st and 2nd. But it turns out we placed 5th out of seven teams. that's no horrible if you consider on how many good teams that were there and that we were competing against the number 1 and 2 teams in the state. But we realized the best thing to do in this situation is use them to our advantage and race against them and make our time even better. That's is what we did or attempted to do on our races. There was one face our of four races that i was only happy with.
The one race that i felt like we did really good on and i know we did was the 4x2. We have 4 solid 200 runners which makes it a really good relay team. coach came up to use when we were done running with his stop watch and a big smile on his face, showing us the time of 1:47. We had cut off 2 or 3 sec of our time. and we are .4 or 1 second away from having the school record. it think with the 2 meets that we have left that we can get the school record. we placed 3rd over all in that race. The nest race for me was the 200. I was nervous for this one because a girl from my team was in my heat and in the lane right next to me. But i do what i always seem to do in the 200 i win the first 150 meters of the race and start to die the last 50 metes. I don't know why but i do. I ended up getting 5th and Ashley the girl from my team placed 4th. My last 2 races were the 4x100 and the sprint med. The 4x1 and sprint med we didn't do so good in. this meet was being rushed and we didn't have much recovery time between races. and our times and placement in the events were not the best and could have been a lot better. this just gives us a chance to prove we are better then that next week at districts. also at state.

Benton Meet reults

last night was the meet at Benton. It was a fun and fast going meet. I was really happy that this meet wasn't that far away..It was only about 30 min away. Another good thing was that this meet didn't have very many teams. i think that were a total of 5 teams there. Which means it went by super fast. One last good thing about this meet was that i was only running one race. Usually my night is filled up with race after race. It was nice to only worry about my one race and then be able to relax the rest of the night. It was nice to see how the relays would do without their normal runners in it. And surprisingly didn't to bad.
The only race that i did run was the 2oo. Coach told me when i was getting off the bus last Friday "you are only winning one race on Monday and that is the 200." i tried to make what he said become real, but considering i was running against a girl who won 40 points for her team lst night and runs at state ever year getting 2nd or 3rd i knew it was going to be hard to get 1st place. my dad even told me if i beat her he would give me twenty dollars. I tried my best to win but it didn't really happen. I ended up getting 2nd place with a no so good time. I was hoping to get a better time then i did. the winning time was 26.6 and i have gotten a time of 26.7 i know that i could be close..but i wasn't close enough. ohhh well there is always a next time.

For this friday we have divisionals coming up. I am a bit nervous for this meet knowing that we have to do good. But looking at the teams we are going against our main competition will be against Xavier. I know it we do put a lot of effort into it which i know we can, we can do well overall. I am excited and can't wait to see how it goes!!

We Won!!

Last Friday was the first meet that we have won since last year!! It was a very good meet for everyone. We all had very good times, they weren't that best that they could have been but still good enough to get first place. The meet was at Burlington as you already know that, which is two hours away. It was a really long drive up there so by the time we were they and walking off the buss we were all very stiff. There were only 7 teams at this meet. we have never ran against any of them or didn't know what to expect. We hadn't seen many of the teams at drake or state before so we knew might be having a lucky day. After warming up coach came over to us telling the team " we have a golden opportunity here, lets go out and do it." I think we all took in what he had to say and worked out butts off. It was nice to see coach walking to the bus with a smile ear to ear..that is something you don't see from him very much. He walks up the steps with a trophy in his hands and we all cheer. It is a good feeling to have once you know that you have done something good and you have worked hard for it.
I ran my usual races, and we placed 1st in the 4x200 and in the sprint med. We placed 2nd in the 4x2 and i got 3rd in the 200. I don't think any relay or anyone on the team placed worse than 5th place.

Now we have a meet tomorrow at Benton Community. This is a JV/V meet but coach says he doesn't want to "over work us" with having districts coming up on Friday. So all of the people that ran in the meet on Friday will only be running one race tomorrow. I am totally fine with this idea. It Will be nice for once to actually sit back and enjoy a meet. I don't get to do that because its race after race for me. hopefully we will do OK without having everyone run their normal events. It will also give people a chance to run that usually don't.

Burlington Meet

Tomorrow we have a meet at Burlington. This meet will be about 2 hours away. It is also the first year that we are going to this meet. I don't really know how to feel about it because it is so far away and the teams there are teams that we never compete against..or see for that matter. We will probably get out of school at 115. and will not be arriving back home till about 12 or the coaches say maybe even 2. This meet is also going to take a long time because it is Co-ed these meets always seem to last a lot longer because you have the boys heats then the girls heats. it adds up to am extra hour or two.
So for this meet i am not sure what i am running yet. But i am assuming it will probably something similar to what i always run. Which will be the 200, 4x100, 4x200 and the sprint med. I am hoping with all this fast speed work or "peaking" that we have been doing that maybe at this meet i will have a chance to get another pr. right now my time for the 200 is 26.7 i know i can get a low 26 that's not out of the question. I think it just needs to be in the right weather conditions outside and for me to be warmed up and ready to go. Which i know the weather is supposed to be getting nice so i don't know why there isn't a reason for me to because able to reach what i want.
At this meet we are hope to perform well over all as a team and maybe place first. There are a lot of teams going to be there that we have never seen before, but we have competed against many good teams and these teams are not as good as thoughts. I am really wanting to make coach happy and do well. So we will go for it and give it our all like we always do..good luck girls!!

if i had one wish

only if i had one wish. It wouldn't be the normal things people think of. My wish wouldn't to be the fastest person in the world, or take back stupid things i have done, people i hurt, or having the most money in the world. My one and only wish would be to have my mom back. she died in 2006. I think about her every day and wish she was here with me.
people have no clue what a mother does for them. Think about it even if they are not the best mom is the ideal mom you want well think of this. She does a lot of things for you without knowing it. When you had a hard day at school she is always there to back you up. You may get in fights and feel like you hate her sometimes, but in the end you have to love her. The Little things we all take for granted in life is what she does for you most of the time.
I feel like no one can replace that feeling. she loves you no matter what, if you get an F, come home drunk, or are pissed at her for no reason. There are so many thing that i wish i could have back. I have a step mom now. and she is nothing like my mom. she never understand me on my leave she talks way to much and i think she is fake. don't get me wrong i love her and she does a lot of things for me, but can never replace that special feeling a mom would give you. I know it is probably just a girl thing and guys i now you would feel the same with your dads. You have the special bond.
My one wish of having my mom back would be great. When she would ask if i want to go to the store with her i know i would say yes right away. i would take anything back to have extra time with her. She was someone that when you had a conversation with her you learned so much and only wanted the best for me and everyone around her. When i think back i wounder why she had cancer, i always ask why her?! she never did anything wrong she ate healthy exercised daily. but why ask why so much. things happen for a reason. in reality asking why just makes mad. With my wish i would have my mom there at all my track meets cheering me on. I know she would be on top of things at school making sure i have the best grades in class that i can get and be there to watch me grow up. I know she wanted to see that and it meant a lot to her. For m second wish i know it would be to be able to give that back to her. Let her come back and see where i am now and watch me grow up and be able to see me run at a track meet. These are things that people take for granted way to much. You my complain about having to make dinner for your family every night but do you really see what she is doing for you behind you back. Paying for your food you eat and maybe even your car insurance. So next time your going to go an get pissed at your parents for something take another look at life and your mom and see if its really worth it. people do so much in life for people and its the small things that add up. but i know it sucks no one ever notices it. think of what your one wish would be and if it is something reasonable. i know i would do anything to make that wish come true.

Peaking

Coach keeps talking all of this peaking crap lately. And i am sure that half of the girls on the team have no idea what he means by it. All they know is that at practice we are not running as much and the workouts are short and at 100%..so all out. what this does is when you get to the middle of the season or towards the end of you you have practices that will get your speed up and essentially make you run faster at meets. the reason you o this is because if you were to peak all season it wouldn't really work, you would ware your body down way to much. If you did workouts like that all season there would be nothing left in you..you would be going to meets getting slower times then you did in the beginning of the season. some people don't now its not worth pushing your athletes every practices and sucking all the juice out of them every day. and a day every now and then is never a bad thing. it lets your legs recover and your body recuperate. So all peaking really is when you wait a while (middle/end of season) and start to have better and faster times over all. I know of some coaches that doesn't believe in "peaking" they think it is all a joke and there is no point in it. i am sure that certain coaches have seen results in certain athletes. I know that it does seem like when i get to state i have faster splits or times. But this also could be because its good running conditions and that i am using my nevus to run faster in the race. we will just have to wait and see how every one else does on all of this peaking stuff. My coach seems to use the term a lot, we will see if it pays off in the end.

the results

Drake went well for the most part. the weather on the first day was great..and we were able to get a nice shorts tan line along with a farmers tan. The 2nd day was not as nice with cold and raining all day. at least it wasn't windy like before and the previous years.
The races i ran were the sprint med and the 4x1 like i have already told you. The first race the was Sprint med early Friday morning at 1030. Not that early but having to leave the hotel by 630 i would say is pretty early!! the sprint med we placed 6th in last year. But we didn't have the same 400 runner anymore she graduated last year and that hurt us in the end. We improved our time by two seconds over all though. we are almost at the same time we were at last year. we are only off by a second. I know if all of us work hard and when we peak we can do really well. and maybe even have a better time then last year. so for the 4x100. we were ranked 18th out of 80. i thought that was pretty good. But when it because time to run we got 5th in our heat out of 8 teams. and not going to lie we were in a good and fast heat so we could have done better and stayed up with the other teams. i think in the end we ended up placing worse then when we came it. another excuse i could come up with is we were in the sun all day and the race wasn't until 530. you don't notice until you go to run or do something physical but the sun really does suck more energy out of you then you think. over all i am very proud of how everyone perfored, I know ehn stake comes around in three weeks that we can knock everyone away and do better. They will not know what is coming for them..

Today we leave for drake..i am very excited. we leave at 4 o'clock and will make it into ames at about 6 o'clock. Our coach is taking up 9 different people. I think that is a good thing because some of them are seniors and haven't gotten to experience going to drake before. We also changed one of our 4x100 relay. we took someone that is a sophomore out and replaced her with a senior. Coach came to me and another girl asking permission to do this change. It really means a lot to us that he came to us first making sure that it was ok. And we decided that it would be fine to switch them out because the girl she was replacing is a senior and hasn't ran a drake before. It would be a good thing for her to see what it is like. They both have the same time so i think that it wouldn't be that big of a deal. and possibly make us even faster and get us into the finals for the 4x100. Right now we are ranked 18th and if we buckle down and run our fastest times at drake we can make it into the finals and possibly place. I think that would be amazing!!

I have been to drake all the years of my high school career..i have loved all of it. from the late nights in the hotel room, watching college teams run, going out to dinner, and just being crazy normally how everyone on our team is. It is always a great time and we will have thousands of pictures to put up on facebok. i am sure when i get back there will be many great stories to talk about and hopefully good news on how we placed.

We made it!!

Finally after waiting a long time seeing if we had made it in for the 4x100 and the sprint med we did!! i am overly excited to go to drake again. I am a little bummed i couldn't have made it in the open 100 but i never really ran it at any meets to qualify. I know that i would have made it to drake in the open 200,but one weird thing about drake is they don't have a girls 200 open or a 4x200. But they have both of these events for boys. I don't really understand why..and probably will never understand why they don't.

This is a big meet for drake this year. it will be the 100th annual year of the drake relays. This means that many Olympian runners will be there. I can not wait to be able to see some of these people run. They are people i look up to and probably can learn a lot from them. I know that watching them will truly be an amazing site to see. I can not wait!!

Now back to the running events. we have 3 total events going to drake. The 100 meter dash, 4x100, and sprint med. Right now for the sprint med we are ranked 23 out of 24. That just makes me want to work harder and show people that we are not worth such a low placing and can beat them out. last year we placed 5th in sprint med and received a metal honestly that would be amazing again but don't know if that is possible from the people that are gone from the team now. And for the 4x100 we are 18th out of 80..i would like to say that is pretty decent. I think that we can improve our time and maybe placing the top 10 hopefully. i think another metal from drake would be amazing too!!

Meet at home

Tomorrow we have our home meet. It is supposed to be at Kingston stadium, but we can't have it there because the football field is being re turfed. So we are having the meet held at Linn mars track. It is also a coe ed meet so you know that it is going to last forever!! In a way i am ok with that because it is a Friday night and i wouldn't have anything else to do if the meet got over earlier. I am also very excited for this meet because the weather is predicted to be very nice. They are saying that is going to be almost in the 70's tomorrow. I can not wait. Since we can't use this meet to qualify into drake because the time cuts offs were last night at midnight I am looking at this meet to get PR's ion my relays and open events. Last meet I got a PR in my open 200. My previous Pr was 26.9 and my time on Tuesday was 26.71!! I was very excited this this time and had worked hard for it. I know that i can bring my time down even more if i would hard and practice and give everything my all. This meet I am not sure on what i will be running i do know for sure i will be running the 4x100, sprint medley and the 4x200. It all depends on what coach wants to put me in, the 100 or 200. We can also look at this meet as preparation for Drake and trying to cut down our times even more so we can have a great time at Drake and maybe even place in the 4x1. Right now for the $x100 we are placed at about 12th, i think we can improve on that and do better. We just need to get our hand offs perfect and be prepared.

Cedar Falls

Last night we had a rather successful meet. I am not for sure on what our team placed over all, but i know that we didn't get 5th place!! i am pretty sure that we got 4th over all which would make me very happy and show that we can actually step it up. But you also have to consider the competition that was there. there 8 teams there total and none of them were all that good. All of the teams had a few strong people on their team, but take them out and they didn't have a team.

As for how my relays and events went, we did great!! the first race was the 4x200. i felt like i wasn't ready for this race for some reason..it was weird i warmed up just how i always do and still didn't feel like my legs where ready to go. It think it may be because i didn't run a stride like i always do before i run and that could have had a big factor on why i didn't run so well. When i went to run i came out of the blocks ok but when i got to the last 50 meters i died..i never die! The next race i had was the open 200. i was in the 2nd heat for varsity and was a bit nervous because i had to run against this girl from Cedar Falls that i always seem to be running against. I ended up placing 1st in my heat and 4th over all. I was very happy with these results. For the 3rd race i had was the sprint med. It was the race we had been waiting for all night. we had a different person running the 400 and someone replacing her running the 100. We were all nervous, but Ashley (the 400 runner) was the most nervous of all. we had to ensure her that everything was going to be ok and she was going to beast it. And that she did..we all had spots that we were going to be at cheering her on around the track. she ran a 62, that is great for someone who has never run the 400 in their life before. we are going got drake in the sprint med because of her!! The last race of the night was the 4x1. We placed 2nd. improved our time..it was a great day with every relay doing as god as they did!!

Tomorrow we have a meet at Cedar falls. I am a little bit nervous for this meet. Like i have said before it is our last meet o qualify in anything before Drake. Now that most of the relays are set and stone and there are going to be no changes made to them i am excited, but still a bit nervous. The reason it makes me so scared is because we have all the same runners in the 4x1, 4x2 and the sprint med. And Coach thought it would be a good idea to have one of our good 200 runners convert into a 400 runner. So at tomorrows meet she will be running the 400 for the first time in her life. She has never ran one besides two times in practice. It makes me really scared but i know that she can do it if she sets her mind to it and run it right. I am just hoping she doesn't stiffen up and die about out half way through..because i now if i was running the 400 that is what would happen to me. And i would feel horrible for the team. This is our last chance to make it into drake in the sprint med. I know we can do it if our time goes down. the last meet we cut off 4 seconds, with a different runner we could cut off another 4 seconds!!

in this meet i will be running my usual and what i like to run. the 200, 4x2, 4x1 and the sprint med. I am excited to run the 200 in good weather ( well the forecast says it is supposed top be good) and see what my time will be. I know that good competition will be there so they can only push me to run my hardest which is good. they will make me work for it. and with out 4x1 we have a good time going into drake, but at our last meet we cut off at least 2 seconds and i know with a little bit more motivation that we can cut off more time. Then when we do come to run at drake we can show them what we can do, and maybe even place. I think that would be amazing. We placed last year at drake in the sprint med so i now that we can make it a reality and not just think of it as being something cool.

DRAKE??

all we know for sure about going to drake is our 4x100 team. we don't know if we are going to make it into any other events. I am sure that we can actually i know that we can. If you saw our team workout and see how badly someone of us really want to do well and make it drake and state. last year we placed in drake and i would love to do that again. it was such a great feeling to tell people i placed at drake..to me that is a big deal!! the other two things that i am hoping to make it to drake in is the sprint medley and the open 100 meter dash. I know that our sprint medley team can make it. we have some amazing people on our team that have the drive to want to improve and show our coach what this team is really made of. And i think that is what we are doing and what we are going to do when more people make it in for individual events and more relays make it. I know that we can do it. But then again i can get really nervous about all of this when i think that there is only one more meet that we have in order to qualify and make the trip up to drake.
The meet is next Tuesday. It will be at cedar falls. The last 2 years we have been at Cedar Falls it had been unbelievably windy and very cold out. i am just hoping that the meet that is our last chance for people to make it into things isn't cold and windy. But i would like to think that the weather doesn't matter and we can make it in anything and to a point i know that is true. Also this next post i hope it is telling all of you how well we did and how i made it to drake in the open 100 and sprint med improved our time by even more and have a good spot and standing at drake.

J-Hawk Invitational

Today we had a rather important meet. I didn't run the 200 like i thought i was going to run. I ended up running the 100 meter dash instead. My coach said the reason for this was because the 200 dash was to close to the sprint medley relay and he wanted me with some what fresh legs for that race because it was one of the most important one of the day. I felt like overall the whole team did really good. the weather was awesome and i couldn't have asked for anything better!! It was about 60 degrees outside with no little to no wind..like i said, perfect. We ended up placing 5th again. some how it seems in every meet no matter what we always get 5th place.

For my races and how i did, over all i would say that i ran pretty good. My 100 i got 7th place over all. i would have liked to do better. I do feel like i ran this 100 more relaxed and not as tensed up which is very good. in The 4x2 we placed 2nd. It was a very tight race at the end but we puled it off and got 3nd. i was very proud and impressed. The sprint med was a very exciting race. We all were pumped and ready to run it. With a new person in for the 400 hoping to improve our time on the relay over all. I want to say we got 3rd place, but i am no positive on that. For the last race of the day which was the 4x1. i felt good and ready for this race knowing it was the last one and the meet was almost over i think we all left everything on the track knowing we could do good. We placed 1st!! it was good to see us finishing in 1st knowing how much we wanted it and how much we had worked for it.

So we have yet another meet on Saturday. I feel like its never in ending in meets and that we never have a break!! But don't get me wrong i love having meets they are fun and you can show everyone what you or your team can do. It is also a great feeling you get when you actually do good in a race and you get recognized for it. This meet that we have on Saturday is at Linn mar. I was originally going to be held at Kingston but with all the new renovations they are doing it can't be held there anymore. i have never ran on Linn mars track and am kind of nervous to. My feeling is that is is not going got be that soft of a track meaning that it is going to be hard and not really have much push for you to get started and have push with your foot.

This meet i will be running an open 200, 4x200, sprint medley and the 4x100. I am glad to be running the 200 again and not the 100 because of how badly i did last time and how upset i was with my time. Recently we talked to our coach about improving our time on the sprint med. He said that he was already one step ahead of us in putting someone else for the 400. i think that doing this will make the time for the sprint medley a lot better and maybe not 12 seconds slower then we were last year.

another thing that i am excited for this meet is that is going to be a little warmer. And it will also be during the day with means that it will stay warm and not get colder as the meet goes on. One one main goal in this meet or this year it is to beat Xavier in the 4x100 or the 4x200. it would make my day or even year to know that we worked hard for it and have that satisfaction of beating them. I think that we can do it!! I am really excited for this meet to see how we place and am hoping for a better place over all.

Iowa City West Meet

I was right this last meet on Tuesday was one of the coldest meets that i have been to. In order to get warm i had to run four laps which is a mile and stretch, but by the time i was done stretching half the time i was cold again. The team over all ended up placing 5th place. sometime this year i want to place better then 5th. In my mind i think of that as failing. We can improve on many things that will make us place higher up.
This time a team mate and i switched individual events that we usually run. So i ran the 100 meter dash and she ran the 200 meter dash. After running this 100 i decided that the 200 is more of my thing and I'm not a big fan of running 100s anymore. It was my first race of the night and i know that is no excuse to do bad, but it was part of the reason. Another factor that i had to take into consideration was that it was only about 30 degrees outside. I didn't feel like i was loose and ready to go..this is all my fault not warming up good enough. I ended up placing 3rd out of 8. that's not horrible, but still that is not the place i would prefer to get.
Now for my other two races that i ran. The other two where the 4x200 and the 4x100. In these events we ended up placing 3rd once again. 3rd place just doesn't fly in my book because i know we can earn and work for that 2nd or even first place spot. we all had very good legs, but i think if we were to replace out 3rd leg runner with someone faster we would have a team that is better. oh well i guess we will have to wait and see what happens this next meet!!

Tomorrows meet

So we have a meet tomorrow in iowa city. It is going got be cold out and also a co-ed meet, which means that it is going to last very long!! So by the end of the night i know that we will all be freezing and wanting to go home to a nice warm bed.

Tomorrow i will be running the 100 meter dash, 4x100 and 4x200. the reason i am only running in three different events is because coach told me he didn't want to over work us and have our legs be tired out for another meet that we have on Saturday. It just seems like every other day we have another meet. they are never ending almost! I am a little disappointed that i don't get to run in the sprint med but the usual team that runs it isn't going got be running it, because we want "fresh legs" for the more important meet on Saturday. still i think all these weather they are big or not are important because drake is within two weeks away and we need to have as many chances as we can to be able to qualify for drake in any meet. But i guess coach is usually right so we will see how tomorrow goes and then how Saturday goes as well. But i am also very excited to run the 100. it is a short and fast race. i have only ran a 60 meter dash this year and did well in it..so running a 100 will be fun and very exciting to see how it will turn out.

Xavier Invitational

Our last meet was held at Xavier this last Friday. It was our first outdoor meet and i was very excited for it. The one thing that i wasn't looking forward to was the coldness from being outside and how windy it was going to be. I don't mind it being cold but when it turns windy there are so any other factors you don't think about that you have to worry about..things like running right into the wind and worming up earlier because the cold weather and wind makes your muscles ten times more cold.

In this meet we ended up placing 5th over all..we were hoping to get 1st. that really didn't happen. There were many girl from school that just came out of no where. But if we look back on the meet we didn't do too bad because we had many people get PRs (personal records) and perform very well. I ended up running my four usual events. The 4x2, 200, sprint med and the 4x1. In the 4x2 we did end up getting first place by something like .02. Still beating the other school by that makes me feel good and shows them that we can really work for it and push for what we want. The next race i ran which was the 200, i ended up getting 2nd place. I was kind of upset with my time. I had a time of 27.4 and i know i can do better then that. I have ran a 26 before. I guess i will have to think positive and hope my time will come soon. Now for the 3rd race of the night, the sprint med. We didn't do so how in this race we have been trying to figure out who would be a good 400 runner. so ever meet we have always had someone different. The thing is last year we had a time of 1:50 and this year our time is 2:02..just a bit of a different having a strong 400 runner does. I am not for sure, but i think we ended up getting 5th in this race. Now for the final and last race of the cold and windy night was the 4x1. We were all very excited to run this race we only had 100 meters to run we were all fast and ready to dominate!! The team placed 2nd. We had a hard battle for 1st or 2nd at the end of the race. it was so close but we still did a great job!!
good job girls and can't wait for the next meet on Tuesday!!

Qualifying for Drake

To me the Drake relays are a big deal. All high Schools in Iowa compete to qualify for it. And even once you are in colleges they compete to get into to it.. we are not competing against each other but still everyone around the united states tries to go to Drake. So i seem to think that it can be a big deal. ever since freshman year i have gone to it. my first year we ran in 2 events, the 4x100 and the sprint medley. I still remember the meet we were at and trying to make the cut off time for the sprint med to get into drake. It was a meet here in town held at Kingston. I was running the First leg of the relay so after i ran i stood there yelling at the relay team and staring at the clock. Our 400 runner Nicole had just gotten the baton and we were doing very good..i knew she could catch us up even more and make us receive the cut off time. When we were done running i looked up and we had cut at least 3 or 4 seconds off of our time!! we had qualified. the teams came together jumping up and down so happy that we had made it. the nest year Trying to qualify for drake seemed to be easier because we had the same relay team as the year before, so therefore we had already worked together and knew what it took. last year we made in the same events (4x100 and the sprint medley). last year for the sprint medley we even placed. We ran and got 5th place out at 30 teams..at the drake relays!! i am hoping this year we can do the same thing and maybe even get 4th place.
this year i am hoping to make it into Drake for the 4x1000 and the sprint med. i think since i have only qualified for the same 2 events every year that i should try and make it for a third one this year. I was thinking about an open event, like the open 200 or the 100. i know it might be hard and take a lot of time and effort to do it, but i know if i put all of that in i can achieve it in the end.

Workouts

Theses last couple weeks of track we have been doing workouts that will get us into outdoor shape and ready for the outdoor season to start. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday are our hardest workouts of the week. he last couple weeks for the "hard days" we have usually ran five 200's at 85 90%. Sometimes running that workout really gets to me. for this last week we run our 200 walk back half way and then jog the rest of the way back to our starting line and start up right again. this can be really tiring sometimes because seeing how you get no chance to catch your breath in between reps. But i know in the long run these workouts are really going to pay off and help me improve my time by a lot. I know it seems that only running five 200's seems like nothing, but it really can be a lot if you think about it..especially for a sprinter.

Now for the easy days on Tuesday and Thursdays..What we usually do on these days is go for a "nice and easy" 2 mile run. Coach says it is to shake everything out and to help us recover faster. Sometimes i think there are other things that we could do that would benefit us better then a 2 mile run. lets think about it at a meet we don't even run 2 miles total. usually at a meet i only run 600 meters. i can understand how it can help us become stronger and help us have more endurance, but i know there has to be other ways we could build it up. i trained with a trainer for pre season track and he said it wasn't necessary for us to run over 300 meters at any point in the season. i really don believe that this is true. Ohh well i will live with running 2 miles and i know that it will just make me better overall. i sure hope so!!

Meets to come

Friday is going to be our first meet that is outdoors. I am rather nervous for this meet because it will be outside and it is going to be very cold out. it is predicted to only be about 45 degrees out.
The one bad thing about having a meet outdoors when it is cold out is that your muscles tend to tighten up very easily and fast. so therefor you have to keep all of you warm ups on until seconds before you run. If you don't warm up properly or warm up at all you will risk pulling a muscle when you run and be out for a while. so you want to make sure that you do this no matter how annoying the warm up are or how much you hate running 2 laps around the track before you run.
I am very excited for the meet too. It will be every ones first time running outside so our times might be better then indoor. The reason times are generally better outdoors then indoors is because the curves you have to turn are not as sharp and there are not as many. So therefore you run faster and are able to run a straight line without turning corners ever 50 meters. Also when running outdoors it is usually warmer so your muscles are already warmed up all you would have to do is get some good stretches in and strides.

The events that i assume i will be running on friday are the 200, 4x100, 4x200 and the sprint medley. I am really excited to run and find out what our times will be. I am really hoping that they will be faster then indoor because I will know then we have a good chance at competing at drake. i want to make it a goal to try and make it to drake in three events. If i do that it will make me day!!

Indoor State

Now on our 3rd and last indoor meet we did great!! We only took up 8 girls from the team and ran in six different events and one field event. All of the girls that went up did amazing and you could tell that we all really wanted to do our best and try our hardest to get up on the podium.

all of the events that were going to be ran by the girls were the 60 meter dash, 200 meter dash, 4x200, 4x100, and 800 meters. And the one field event was the high jump. Every event that was ran was placed within the top 20 out of almost 160 competitors in each event.
Before running i was very nervous and didn't know what to expect. I knew that i would be running against some tough competition so i knew i had to get myself mentally prepared for it. the first event that I got out of my way was the 4x2. knowing how we had done in previous events i was pretty excited to run this. All I could think about before running was about being on that podium and how cool it would feel. After running it and having an ok first leg, but feeling like i could have done better we ended up getting 5th place. i thought that was pretty good. Now the next race i have to get ready for is my open 200. This race always makes me very nervous because its a race i have to run on my own and it all is up to me and how i perform. which in a way can make me want it even more and strive for it to all that i can. I was really happy with how i can i ended up getting first place in my heat, but i know that can mean nothing knowing that there were 21 heats and i was the 18th heat. i ended up getting 13th place. I knew i could have done better but i felt pretty satisfied. for the last race of the day was the 4x1..you save the best for last!! the whole team was pumped for this we were only running a 100 and had done pretty good the whole day. we knew what we were capable of doing. i started us off and broke the stagger with hading the baton off first. the rest of the hand offs were great!! With everything in the race going well we ended up placing 4h over all..i was very happy with this!!
so far this meet was the most exciting for me placing in 2 events out of 3. just have to wait for the nest one now..

UNI mvc

So we recently had our 2nd track meet, which was at UNI. It was the MVC indoor meet which means that it was the Mississippi valley conference meet. MVC is everyone that we will be running against to try and qualify for state. This meet i ran the maximum number of events that you are able to run, which is 4 events they were the 60 meter dash, 4x100, 4x200 and the sprint medley.

In this meet it was really hard for me to get focused and not be thinking about other things. Recently i have had a lot of things on my mind, and sometimes i find that getting in the way at track and even sometimes at school. But now with everything on my mind i am trying got use that in a good way and actually help me with my race. I think that it actually worked this time too. Right before I ran my 60 I thought of things that really made me angry to pump me up and want to run fast and a way to release my anger. i ended up getting 2nd in my heat and 3rd over all. i was very happy with that. To think that we were at the MVC meet and i received 3rd place made me happy and only motivates me more for the outdoor season to start.
Next up was the 4x200. This race was going to be a little different to run, because all indoor track are 200 meter tracks. So to run a 200 indoors you are running more curves then you usually do and your time is usually slower because of this. But depending on the track you could have a really good time because of the good quality of the track and it being a "fast track". We were very surprised once we finished running the relay. We ended up getting 1st in our heat. we had a lead of about 25 meter which is very rare to happen. Over all we ended up getting 2nd. With the 4x1 the same thing happened we got 1st in out heat with placing 2nd over all. Running a 100 in indoors is always a very awkward race because you have to run a curve and it seems to be a lot longer when it actually is the just the same. and for the last race..the sprint med. this always was my favorite race to run I always start it out with running a 100. Then after the 100 i had off and the next girl run a 100 then it goes to a 200 and finally a 400. we didn't do so hot in this relay but still placed 4th in our heat.

that's all for this meet!!

Wartburg

So Tuesday was our first track meet. This meet was a little different then others and how they score the events. With this meet they just gave you team points or individual points on how well you did in the relay or in your event. There was no over all team as a whole who won.

In the meet i only ran in 2 events (200 meter dash and the 4x200). I ended up placing 3rd over all in the 200 out of 44 people with a time of 27.7. That time made me mad. My PR (personal record) is 26.9, so i was almost a whole second slower. but i have to take into account that i was in lane 2 and i have been training on lanes 5 and 6..which has a huge impact because of how tight the curves are on the track.
our 4x2 team did great for it being our first meet. We placed in the top, which is really good considering our competitors that we were going against. We went against some of the best runners in the state. I am very proud of how everyone performed for it being the first meet and indoors.

Blogging

i think that blogging for students can be good. it gives you a chance to actually write about things that you want to write about. Because there are a lot of times that teachers give you assignments that you really don't want to write about..this gives you a chance to choose what to write. your options are endless!!

I thought it was fun it gave me a chance to think more about what i like and to let people know how i really feel about things. And it also showed people that there are a lot more things to track then you really think. i could keep writing about it hours on end. there are many different things that can apply to one topic. I don't think that someone could ever say that they don't have anting more to write about. There are some dislikes that i had about blogging. The one thing was keeping up with all of the posts..i have a really busy schedule at night and it was just one more thing to add on to my night. i know that it wasn't that much writing, but still it was hard for me to find that time at night three times a week. After a while it seemed that it got old. i still had new things to write about but i didn't want to repeat myself and make it boring for the readers. i feel like i could always talk about track, but in some posts i felt like i was repeating some things i had said in previous posts.

over all i did like it.. i think that a more time to do things would have been better.

Eating habbits

When you have a meet the next day you most likely to not think about what the right thing are to eat..eating is one of the most important things before your race or the day before race day. many people think of carbo loading before their race day, that is not always the best thing to do. you can fill yourself up with to much food and it will not benefit you in any way. The best thing you can do a day before a race is drink lots of water, you want as much fluids in you as you want. And eat carbs, but you don't want to go crazy on them. the best thin for you to eat is eating a sandwich for lunch and some pasta for dinner. although you think protein may sound like it is a good thing to eat a lot of before isn't really no your best choice. you will benefit more from your pasta and sandwiches.
Now the way you on race day will be very different from pre race day. on this day you will want to eat very lightly. you don't want to have to much food in you. if you are stuffed with food you are not going to run as fast as you could. it is pretty self explanatory, the lighter you will be the faster you will be.

Confidence

When running in track one thing you need is a lot of confidence. in order to do well and accomplish what you want will you have to have some confidence in yourself. it plays a huge role. if you think about it without confidence you are not going to be able to do what you want because you will not have the will power to actually go out there. you won't have that push in you when it comes to race time and you won't do as well as you could. that's why you have to have confidence!!
it can also come into play in other part in many different sports. when you have an extra boost of confidence will you make you want to play or go out and run harder. i know there are sometimes that you don't feel like playing or times where you don't feel like running in practice. but the only way that you are going to get better is to go out every time and do your best in practice and out of practice. knowing that you have the confidence in yourself that you can do well in something you know you will try harder to get even better. i have had many personal experiences with this before.
in order to have confidence all you need to do is be able to believe in yourself. if you never believe that you can do something i know that you are not going to be able to do it. you have to know that you are going to be able to achieve your goal and go beyond that.

Handing off

I find handing on of of the other things that is hardest to do in track. it all depends on what person you are handing off to. with every person if you are receiving the baton it will be different steps that you will have to take. When receiving a baton you have to mark your steps on when to take off in time to get the hand off perfect. usually depending on your foot size and how fast the incoming person is. for the normal person they usually take fifteen steps out from where they stand to get the baton. then go back and stand in your spot...once your team mate comes in and hits the line where you marked your steps. then you run they will catch up and you have the baton! off you go!

Another thing you have to get right when handing off is getting your arm in the right position for receiving the baton. it is one of the hardest things to perfect. most people do something called bobbing for the baton. that is when you move your arm up and down when trying to get the baton from the other person handing off. it makes it almost impossible to hand the baton of when they do that!

handing off is one of the most important parts in a relay. if you mess up on hand off your whole team could lose because of that. or if you were to drop the baton on a hand off you would be disqualified from the race. And let me tell you from experience it sucks to have that happen to you!

Shoes

There are many different types of shoes that you can wear when running track. it all depends on what type of events you usually run in. There are very many different types of shoes and brands of spikes and shoes you have to choose from.

When running distances your choices for shoes would be regular running shoes or a pair of long distance running spikes. The spikes for distance are a little different then you might think. They are very light weight and the spikes on them a different too. The spikes general are not as long and there are only five spikes. compared to a sprinters spikes with eight. Long distance spikes also have a heal to them...this helps support their feet more when running. Sprinters don't need a heal on their shoe because you don't run on your heals. You usually run on the front third of your foot.

When choosing what spikes to get you should go for the lightest pair you can buy. The lighter the better. It will make it feel like you are not even wearing anything on your foot and make you fly right across the track. Another thing to look for when finding the right spikes is make sure they are plastic on the bottom of the shoe...you don't want them to be able to bend in half. that can actually slow you down. you want the type that supports your foot and can make you the best you can be.

Technique

i can not even list how many different things there are that you need to work on when trying got run correctly...I will list some examples for you so you can get the gist of what i am talking about.

• driving with your feet
• moving your arms correctly
• breathing
• body position
• how to finish
• starting off right

so that is just some examples. I can tell you some times it is very hard to break that old habit and make it a new one. Correcting someone and how they were running before is one of the most difficult things that you will go though in track training. from a personal experience i have been training for about 2 months now and I am still trying to perfect my starts which at some point seems almost impossible to me. But i know that if I keep working on it one day I will have it down to a perfection!

To do things right you will need to have lots a Patience. With driving your feet you really need to push them into the track and keep them lower to the ground. It may sound like something that is easy but trust me you don't realize you are doing it until it i s pointed out to you. With driving your feet the right way starting can be similar. you need to feel your back foot and really exploding out of them! One important thing to do is keep your head down. you are not going to be looking up right away. Also make sure your body doesn't go straight up once you get out...that will make you significantly slower, gradually move so you are standing right. you shouldn't be standing up until about 50 meters into the race.

The Mind

I think to play any sport you have to be mentally strong enough. There are many different things that people really don't think about when they think of sports and just playing them. typically you would just think of the physical part and how strong you have to be to play. yes you do how to be physically strong that is very important but you can be strong but everything can be ruined if you mind is not in the right place or thinking the right thing. But being mentally prepared for "the big game" or the qualifying race can play a big part in how you perform that day. Just for not being in the right mind state or over thinking things can make you lose that race or the big game. there is a lot more to being able to be in sports then you really think.

When thinking before my races I get to thinking about my running forms and if I am going to beat the people standing next to me. Most of the time i like to tell myself that i can beat them and it is going to be no problem, but i know sometimes that is not the best way to think. You have to know that you are going to have to work for what you want. If you want to get first place you will have to push yourself and get that first place. When running your race or playing that game you can't over think everything because if you were to think to much you can't concentrate on one thing that you need to really focus on. for example before i go out to run my race i say to myself that i really need to push myself out of the blocks and just go! If i think that's and have a good start usually i do most of the other things right...like not standing up right away or moving my arms across my body instead at the sides. You have to clear your mind of everything that happened that day or everything personal. and just focus on that one thing that will make you do better overall. Another thing you have to think of mentally is not over thinking the people you are about to compete against. when going out on to the track and thinking it is going to be no problem and I could take everyone on the track would not be right for me to think...Just by doing that i would go out and not run my hardest because I would be telling myself that it is no problem and i don't have to work as hard. You may not know it but the mind plays a bigger role int hings than you would think!!

You should always work as if you were running or playing against the world camp!

Workouts

Have you ever just had that feeling where you know that you have to go do something and you really just don't want to do it? well i get that feeling a lot before i am going to workout. I dread getting my workout clothes on when i know what is coming for me. I don't want to walk on the track knowing that a very hard, intense workout is coming for me. And then during that workout you start to feel like crap and you are not going to be able to complete the whole thing...i feel that everyday! But five minutes after running you start to feel great and that you just accomplished something really big.

I have the feelings like that every day...when i hear that the work out is going to be a latter being running a 300 250 150 100 and 50 meter with only walking back being your rest period...my brain starts to think everything negative that I possibly can. But now add on a mile cool down run. afterwards...that mile workout is probably going to be someones walking passe is what I am thinking. Every time i start thinking like this i know that i shouldn't. A lot of doing all sports is the mind setting you put yourself in. If you are thinking that you are going to lose or your going to die at the work out you most likely will lose and not do so good on your workout. Thinking positive and above what you really can do is one of the best things you can do. By thinking this you might be able to accomplish something that you never thought you would be able to.

that's is all for now! more about this on the next post...be ready!!!

relay

I think doing sports as a kid is one of the best ways to meet people and make friends. Playing soccer and running track was one of the best things i did as a little kid.

now doing track in high school has brought me very close my of the girls on the team. There are three different relay teams that I run. On relay teams there are always four different girls that run the relays. With having the relay teams it is a great way to get close to people. You are always with the people on the relays...perfecting your hand offs, making sure you have the right steps down and most importantly not dropping the baton. All of thoughts steps are very important when running a relay. if you were to mess up your steps and go to early the whole entire race would be messed up. And if the baton were to be dropped you would be disqualified from the whole race. which that would suck very much especially if it were at state or a very important race that you were trying to qualify for something.