Belfast 9/05/09 - 9/11/09

Another great week of XC has gone by and things look to be getting better! People are improving and our team's performances and the performances around the state are getting me pumped up for the rest of the season! After the hilly Maranacook course I was ready for some faster courses (but really I was very happy with my Maranacook race). Here is some of the stuff I have done leading up to Belfast.


Training: 
Saturday September 5 - Mid length run, fairly easy. Then drive up to Farmington to visit Nicole "awesome calves" Morissette. An attempt to hike a mountain in Rumford was made.... found some really creepy back roads and heard gunshots while we were walking around to find the trail. Turns out we went too far past the trail entrance. When we finally found the trail it was getting dark and the trail turned out to be really crappy anyway. Bleh!

Sunday September 6 - Another hiking attempt.... this time successful! We went to hike Mt. Blue and it was great! Nicole pretty much sprinted up and down the mountain. I couldn't keep up! She is so fast! Later that day I ran 7 miles in the dark.... I didn't feel any fatigue or any discomfort while I was running because I was too afraid some animal was going to come eat me.

Monday September 7 - 6 mile run really hilly. Then 8 x100 (in about 20-22 seconds) hills after and 5 circuit strength workout.

Tuesday September 8 - Track work. Warm up then 800,400,200 ladder x2. 3 mile fairly hard later.

Wednesday September 9 - Warm up then 6 mile run.

Thursday September 10 - Easy day with team. 1 mile easy then wiffle ball.

Friday September 11 - Race at Belfast 16:10.92 for 5k!


Belfast - Coming into this race I was kind of nervous because I knew this course would give me a good shot to get a decent time. I know my team members also had fairly high expectations for themselves. They had all set goal times for themselves at the start of the season and this would be the first real shot to get close to if not beat those times. The race started and I tried to get out pretty quick. Later when looking at a video of the start I saw that Eben had a pretty good start (Below) as did most of my team. They all got out pretty well.

I had Jason Kaake and Ryan James right next to me going down the incline on the backside of the first little hill. Running through the course I could tell that Jason and I were moving pretty well. (Below)

Unfortunately no one was standing at the mile so I didn't know what our pace was! Aargh! I tried to keep the pace up heading to mile 2  and Jason held on to my back. Going by the two mile there was still no one saying times... but luckily a Winslow girl (I think Riley Jones?) told us our time probably 10-15 seconds after we went by the 2 mile mark. She said 10:44. The 2 mile was probably about 10:30.

From there I tried to push the last mile pretty hard. I went back around the last loop and finished in 16:10 which means I did about as 5:40 for the last 1.1. Eben came in at 17:42 which is a new life time best. and Jarrod hit 19:06. Almost the entire rest of the team PR'ed there (or at least came really close). Jason Goggin, who smashed his previous best time last week at Maranacook with a 26:44, broke his record again with a 25:32 at Belfast. That's such a ridiculous improvement over last year!

Overall a very good week of training for the guys and their hard work is showing.

Up next week: @ Medomak Valley Vs. Belfast, Camden, Edward Little, Lawrence, Lincoln, and Medomak. I hear this one is a fast course too... if not, we will just have to make it fast!