Congratulations everyone, we made it through what could quite possibly have been the toughest and longest track season yet. In the beginning, as with every new track season, everyone was excited to set PRs (and of course to show the freshmen the lizard that lives in the long jump pit, but that’s a different story). Cross country and indoor track had been a success for me and I was really looking forward to this season, so I was really disappointed when it was all cancelled. Still, I didn’t want to give up on improving during the season, so I continued to train and do workouts. Obviously, I wasn’t able to see the same improvements that I was hoping for which was discouraging. I felt like I couldn’t give up on getting faster though and didn’t want to make excuses. I had seen stories of other people running fast times solo and thought I just needed to get in the right mindset and push myself harder. Yet by the end of the season, I had not come close to my PR from the year before and I realized that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to compare my season to anyone else’s or even my own past seasons. I concluded that I had to judge this season on its own because it was completely different. Although I didn’t get any fast times, I would say this season had some successes of its own. First, it has made me so much more grateful for the team and for the opportunities we usually take for granted. I think that going into cross country, we will better be able to give each workout and each race a good shot. We will also be better off knowing that we can persevere through a tough season. It will be so much easier to push through a tough race or workout with a team, having just gone through an entire season of rough workouts alone. No one has made great improvements doing easy things, and I know this season wasn’t the easiest. So don’t be discouraged, there is something valuable to be gained from this season. Cross country season is coming up and all the hard work will pay off.

Training update:

I’m starting my second week back from a two week break. I’m getting back into running and doing some cross training as well. I’ve also been able to get together with some teammates I haven’t seen for a while.