Tapering!!!

The end of the Cross Country season is coming. That means tapering!!!!

Tapering is when you go from running 45 miles a week to only running like 20 miles a week. When your season is ending you really don’t have much time to build up strength and endurance so instead you taper, so your legs can heal from all the hard training and you have a surplus of energy.

We have been tapering for about a week now and I already have a ridiculous amount of energy. I didn’t think it was possible that tapering could have that much effect on someone, but I think everyone just thinks I am weird now, because I have a crazy amount of energy and I literally can’t stay put.

Tapering is very important for runners. It makes a big difference in how someone runs their final races. Last year, I improved be 30 seconds after 2 weeks of tapering and I am really hoping I can do that again this year.

So how much should you taper? Well you should start tapering about 2 weeks before your last race and on the second to last week you should run about one fourth of what you have been running. Then on the week before the race you should cut your running back by at least 50%. Sometimes it’s hard to judge exactly how much you should taper. You do not want to get out of shape and you do not want to train to hard. Sometimes you just have to use your best judgment and sometimes, if you are lucky like me, your coach is a really good coach and he knows what you need to run. Just make sure you run what you need to, or else your last race will not be as successful.

Tapering week is one of my favorite weeks. I get home from practice a lot earlier than I normally do and I have a lot more energy. Freshman year, I was an alternate for state and everyone was a lot faster than me, so I did not really get much tapering, but last year when I actually got to taper, It was a lot of fun. I am looking forward to these weeks of tapering!

There are also negative aspects to tapering week. It means the season is coming to an end and there is a lot of pressure to do well in your last meet. But if you learn to ignore the pressure and realize that even though your season is ending, you have had a lot of great times, these weeks can be a lot of fun.

Tapering is a lot of fun and very useful, but you have taper right or else it could have a big effect on how you perform in your last races of the season.

Conference Champions!

First Kennedy girls Cross Country team to win Conference!!!! Last night’s meet was exciting! I ended up finishing second, our team was first by 15 points and our coach won the coach of the year for our conference!!! This race had a lot of good aspects, but there were bad things about it too.

It was awesome that we won and we made history at our high school, but I think our team could have ran a little better. No one is really improving much, but we still won the meet and there was two really good teams there. I just hope we keep placing well and then maybe when theres even more competition we will run faster times.

We also have a new fifth runner. CS was beat by JR, which kind of surprises me and worries me. Both runners tend to be inconsistent and we really need both of them to pick it up. JS has been out most of the season with injuries, because she doesn’t run during the summer! This pisses me off how she doesn’t train and then all the sudden she’s running well than all these girls who have been to every practice and have worked really hard. She even kicked TM off of varsity, and she has never run a race other than varsity, and now she won’t be able to run in state her senior year! L It just shows how some people are naturally good runners and other people (like me) have to train extremely hard to improve. If you’re a naturally good runner, you should still come to practice and at least make it look like your trying, or else you’re just making the rest of the team feel bad.

Although that made me mad, I am glad that we have another good runner. I am also scared for our other runners though. No one’s really improving. KW, AC, LM, and me keep on running around 10 seconds worse than we did a few weeks ago. I am hoping once we start tapering (lowering the miles we run every day) we will start getting better. I am putting my faith in Jensen  (our coach) that he knows what he is doing and the training will make us better for districts and state.

So, this was most people’s last meet. I am going to miss everyone. Our team will now only consist of our 7 varsity runners and 3 alternates. This is one of my least favorite parts of the season. I have so many friends on J.V. and my sister is not on varsity, so I won't be able to see all these people nearly as much as I am used to and this really makes me sad.

There were a lot of not so great things about this meet, but overall it was a pretty good meet. We had 3 girls get first team all-conference and a girl who was 1 second off from first team all-conference! The coase was a decent coarse. The weather was not amazing, but it could have been a lot worse and a couple of my friends came to cheer us on. I also got ice cream after my race so that is always a plus.

Our Varsity team and our coaches.

KW, me, and AC with our first team all-conference certificates.

Thank God for running!

One thing that is so great about running is that you do not have to be that coordinated.

The other day in US History, we were playing this weird jeopardy game where you had to shoot a ball into a trash can. Well, unfortunately, I can’t catch or throw a ball to save my life. So when the teacher threw the ball right at me and hit me in the stomach, before falling to the ground, let’s just say there were some laughs. Then I chose to throw the ball from around the 4 foot mark and missed by a lot. Again there were more laughs. Oh, why am I so awkward?

The good news is that I am a runner. It would be a lot worse if that happened to a basketball player (that actually did happen to me when I played basketball, and it was even more embarrassing).  So I am hoping no one judges me too much, since everyone knows I am a runner.

One of the reasons I became a runner was because I could not catch or throw a ball. I used to play basketball, but I mostly just sat on the bench, and I used to play softball, but I was that weird kid who sat in the outfield and didn’t even move when a ball came near.

So I decided I probably was not going to go far with basketball and softball and I wanted to be good at something. I wanted people to remember me for something other than being that girl who tried out for everything, but wasn’t good at anything (I also tried gymnastics and I danced for 12 years, even though I sucked).  I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t do any sport that involved a ball, and I wasn’t extremely smart. So that left me with art, swimming and running. I chose running, mostly because my dad also did track and I did track in 7^th grade, but now I decided I am actually going to try at track and I wanted to be good at it, so I went out for cross country to get into shape. That started my running career.

I really don’t know what my life would be like without cross country, but I am thankful for being that awkward girl who can’t catch a ball from 2 feet away, because that led me to running. Thank god you don’t need to be that coordinated to run!!!

Rankings?

I am not a huge fan of cross country rankings. Iowa Association of Track Coaches creates a list of the top 15 teams and the top 30 runners in 4A, 3A, 2A, and 1A. I feel like these rankings are very inaccurate though. Last year I was not even ranked and I finished 16^th at State.

Right now I am ranked 5^th which really confuses me. It seems like the top 10 finishers of our last meet are the exact same top 10 rankings in the state. So I finished 5^th last meet and now I am ranked 5^th? This really confuses me. I am wondering if all the other schools had a really hard course, but it still does not really make sense.

Our team is now ranked 3^rd. Dowling Catholic is now ranked 2^nd, yet they only have 2 people who are even ranked! And Linn-Mar beat us last meet, but they are ranked 4^th.

So, basically, just don’t trust the rankings, because they make no sense at all and more than likely the state meet won’t turn out like the rankings say it will.

Color Run!!!

Yesterday I walked the color run in Des Moines. It was awesome!!!!!! I highly recommend it to everyone. It’s a 5k where you can run, walk, or dance and volunteers throw this colorful dust at you along the way. It is also international.

Since my coach and my dad would kill me if I ran the race, since it’s so close to state, I walked the whole way. 5K’s feel a lot shorter when you are walking them then when you are running them. I went with 3 of my really good friends who also run cross country. It was soooooooo much fun!!!!

You walk about 1000 meters until you see a giant cloud of color ahead and you start to hear music playing. This was the point where I started getting really excited and probably looked like a lunatic. In the cloud of color there were people with bottles of colorful dust that were spraying the dust at us while we passed. I really wanted to get super colorful so I just stood in front of the volunteers until they sprayed me with color, laughed when I am still standing there, and then sprayed me again with color. After the race there was a party. At the beginning of the race they gave you packets of color dust and then at the end, everyone sprayed their color dust everywhere. It was so awesome!!!!!!!

 

 

 

After the run we went to McDonalds and my face was still slightly pink and my hair was green, and then I ordered 20 chicken nuggets and a McDouble, so I got some strange looks.

Here are some tips if you ever go to the color run.

1.    (slightly obvious, but needs to be said) BRING A CAMERA

2.    Wear white (also a bit obvious)

3.    Make sure you stand in front of the volunteers, until they spray you with color dust

4.    Take your time going through the color dust

5.    Do not use your color dust they give you until the party, because it’s so much more fun to use it then, and it’s really annoying when you use it before then.

6.    CLOSE YOUR MOUTH, the stuff tastes gross!

7.    Be prepared for this dust to go everywhere. Blowing my nose afterward was very disturbing and it was also in my ears. It also does not wash out of hair that easily, so I had to go to a haunted house with green hair.

7th Meet

I really do not want to write this post. No matter how much I do not really want to write it I feel obligated to talk about each of my meets, and I did learn a lot in this meet. Last Thursday, I learned how it felt to lose a meet (well really we got third place, but it was a huge lose for us).

The meet started out good. Runners in the races before us were running close to the same times they have been and we had beat all the teams there before, so I had a good feeling about this race. I was also completely shin splint-free and full of confidence.

The race started like every other race. KW and AC were a little bit in front of me and LM was right next to me. Around the half mile mark I noticed LM was not even that close to me, which I thought was weird, but figured I had just started the race too fast and she would catch up to me. So I kept on running and I was still behind KW and AC until I passed KW and then I passed AC. I figured I was doing pretty well, but I had some concern for my teammates, who at that point, I had no idea where they were. We normally stick together for most of the race.

I approached the clock at the finish line and estimated my time to me 14:55 (which it actually was).  At first I was thinking okay it’s not great but at least I am still under 15 and then I looked over to watch KW and AC finish. They did not do that great (probably 10-20 seconds worse than me).  Then I started looking for LM. I saw her still running with about a hundred yards left and then I looked up at a board, which showed all of the finishers from the school they are from and I noticed are chances of winning the meet were declining.

I was then overcome with emotion. I wanted to scream and cry. I was so overcome with anger and then I thought, where the hell is CS (our fifth runner)? I saw Jensen (our coach), who I think was experiencing some of the same feelings, and I asked him where she is, he shrugged and said about 60^th. Then I went and ran my cool down, by myself, and accidently gave death glares to some people.

I later learned that LM was cutoff and she tripped and fell and her leg was bruised and scraped up. So I definitely could not blame her for doing worse then she normally does, but what about CS, who ran almost a minute slower than normal.

I think I take cross country way to seriously, because even though CS is one of my good friends I am still having a hard time not being mad at her and the race was 3 days ago. I am still disappointed with this meet. I learned that when you are doing so good and you have a really bad race, it’s hard to remember the good races. The best thing to do is to just not have those kinds of races, but unfortunately, almost every team/person does, so you just have to get yourself back out there and work harder next time.

So our team is officially undefeated and it sucks.

Mental Aspect of a Race

The mental aspect of a race is very important. If you think you can do it you probably can, but if you doubt yourself you probably won't be able to achieve your goals.

During a race it is important to look up and focus on passing or keeping up with the people around you. You have to keep positive and think about how if you just try a little harder you could get a new PR (personal record) or you could place a little better. For some people it helps to keep track of how much of the race you have left. It also helps if you think about the race before the race so you know what to expect and you don’t get as nervous.

Unfortunately, like many other people, I have a hard time achieving positivity during races.

What I think about during the race:

(We’re lining up) Crap I am not ready I don’t want to do this. Wait, no I am ready for this I am going to do awesome. Shit, he just shot the gun, now I have to start.

Stay with Katy! Why am I breathing so much harder than everyone else? That girl just gave me a nasty glare! Tree. Uuuuhhhhh, this is hard, there I can trip over that root if I need to. I can say that girl with the nasty glare tripped me, and I need to stop. No, Jensen would kill me. Tree. Turn left. Turn Right. Hi dad thanks for cheering for me! Tree. There’s Megan. She’s not even cheering! I am going to have to talk to her… tree. Turn left.  

(Coming close to the end) Oh were almost done, that went by fast! I think I am going to pass this person. Yay, I passed them. Only a hundred yards until I finish and get a sandwichJ.