To start this off like a normal blog… What I’m listening too: “Change” by Taylor Swift

So “we” started strong with our blog posting, we constituting as Reese weekly and a random blurb from the rest of us about every three months, but we have started to fall off the rate of 1 blog per week (bpw). I don’t blame we, summers can be really busy.

A quick update on the last couple of months… First off David and I graduated high school (crazy huh?). Rehearsal made the ceremony seem like it was going to be a tedious affair, but everyone was so up beat that it made the 2 hours fly by really quickly. Second, state track just finished up. Track in Fairbanks, and Alaska in general I feel can be a double edged sword. I saw this because you can train about 6-8 weeks of speed when the snow gets off the ground if you’re careful, but you have no room for injuries or even a training slump. A plus is that you’re in good shape from skiing and every week you can watch your times drop drastically which is always encouraging. State rolled around this weekend and I ended up running the 3200 1600 and 4×400. The 3200 was fairly frustrating; I told myself I was going to run no faster than 4:50 my first mile which I ended up doing, but the pack of about 8 guys was still ahead of me. We all sort of went on die pace, the most awesome die being Trevor Dunbar’s who ran a 4:20 and then a 5:00. I managed to catch one guy falling off the tail end to get 7^th with a high 9:5x, a couple seconds off my personal record from the previous weekend. The 1600 the next day went a lot better, as I felt really good at 800 in and was able to make a move with 700 to go and hold it to finish 3^rd with a 4:28. It was one of those things where I was just able to focus on the race and the time came with it, I think I ended up setting a personal record by 5 or so seconds. I thought it was kinda cool that the two kids to finish in front of me (Aaron Fletcher and Trevor Dunbar) were the only two other freshman to qualify for the 1600 4 years ago. Actually a couple of cool things happened that day; all of Team Fast came out to cheer me on, and I finished my last high school race on the Lathrop track which is the same place I started my first high school race. Thirdly, I finally got my Marwe roller skis mounted and tomorrow is the first day that I hit the roads. Believe it or not I am super excited to roller ski this summer. Fourth and finally, I am starting to look at what races I am going to do this summer. The first idea on the list is a 5k time trial in which a couple of people agreed to help pace for a sub 16. I got pretty close in cross country, but never managed to run under 16 and I think the speed from track will be beneficial to running that time. Probably the next race will be Bill’s (our coach) infamous Ester Dome time trial which is a sold, and I mean solid uphill 5k. I can’t think past much of June, so the Midnight Sun Run 10k is the last race idea on my list right now

So finals are over…. Which means school is over, at least for this season. It also means that I can now take full advantage of our near continuous sunlight by actually being outside as opposed to inside studying. For example, my computer programming class was getting on my nerves; I was sick of training in the glorious early morning rays, only to have to walk into the dark, stuffy computer cave to write code for five hours while the birds chirp and the flowers bloom outside.

The three most important consequences of school being done are:

1         I resume that thing called employment, now working 8 hour days in the bike shop.

2         I can be outside training when I want and as much as I want, except for significant exceptions (see #1).

3         I never have to take a chemistry class again.

In mostly unrelated news, I got to test out the summer’s first batch of our newest training supplement: homemade Alaskan salmon jerky. Just a stick or two of this sticky-sweet all natural power protein will launch you on your way to complete post-workout recovery.

Logan and I went and rallied the local pump track tonight. It’s basically a mini bmx track with all kinds of lines set up, and it’s a good time….

Me sampling the fresh salmon jerky after a fast 3.5 hour ride

Logan going all crazy on some home repairs

Here I am pumping around the track with Logan in hot pursuit

Now who's chasing?

Flowy…

So far, our spring blog record has been ridiculously pathetic. I don’t know exactly what it is about this time of year, but once the toe crosses the line in that last ski race, everything just seems to explode. There is suddenly so much stuff to do and so little time to do it in, but I suppose the same can be said for either of the major seasonal transitions. Basically, that was a sorry attempt to justify our lack of publishing.

This year, that last ski race happened five minutes from my house, with the US Distance Nationals being held at Birch Hill. It was a good week and some seriously fun racing, highlighted by Tyson and I getting 7^th in the Team Sprint and David throwing down some super-legitimate 30 and 50k results.

But now that that’s over with, there are skis to be waxed, bikes to be built, miles to log, and mountains of homework to do. Somewhere in there, I’ve managed to set myself a goal of running every other day, and doing intervals once a week. To some of you uber-runner folk like gazelle-man J-Freeman, this may hardly even seem like mentioning, but when you consider the fact that I (1)am absolutely terrible at it, and (2)absolutely hate it, I figured it would be a good challenge.

Yesterday was the first race of the year, a little milestone/opener city 5k. Logan and I went into it hoping to both set PR’s, which for us hardly even requires running fast. But I don’t think I’m alone when I say that it seems like there are major differences between running fast and skiing fast.

When I finish a ski race in which I was beaten significantly, I usually cross the line and immediately think about all the training I need to do to ski faster. However, when I flail across the line in a running race, obviously way off the pace, I feel like the best way to run faster would be to have my intestines surgically removed. It’s like I can hardly notice my legs, while my stomach has just been filled with Clorox. Maybe Prefontaine should’ve said he wanted to see who had the least guts.

So anyways, we both PR’d, and I got reminded as to why I am not a runner.

The rubber legs kicking me in….

Logan 500 meters out….