Ok this is the week it all comes down to. I have had my time trial for the 4x800 and now its the other girls turn for it. she will be running the 800 in the meet on this friday, and i will be running the 4x800. She is a senior so in a way i hope she gets it but i feel like i have worked to hard to get to where i am to just let her have it because shes a senior. She is one of my good friends, but i just want this so bad. Her last 800 time was 2 seconds slower than my personal record time so i'm hoping she wont be any faster this friday after only one week of practice. My anxiety is unbelievable, im just hoping for the best. Who ever knew this could be so competitive.

So this week at practice i'm kind of freaking out. I have been working SO hard to get to where i am right now and i want that spot on the 4x800 team more than anybody else. I have been working so hard, and every week i have improved my time by at least 2 seconds. i really hope he gives me a shot at the relay team because i feel like i have earned it. According to alot of my teammates i work harder than anybody else. That doesn't mean i'm faster, because alot of the girls are faster than me, but i've just been working so hard to get to where i am right now. Words cannot describe how badly i want this.

This week in Track has been pretty intense. Right now it is a race between me and 4 other girls for a spot on the 4x800 team for regionals. On Monday me and madison and Jamie ran aginst each other in the 800 meter to see who has the best time. I automatically knew madison would be faster than me, but i knew i could beat jamie. Coach told me he wanted me to run a 2:44 wich is by far the fastest i've ran this season, and it just so happens that i ran a 2:44. I was right behind madison, but it was close. I was pretty far in front of jamie though. So now coach is pretty happy with me and so now its a race between me and one other person for the spot on the 4x800 team.

This week at practice we had an EXTREMELY hard workout. This workout was the hardest we have done. We are about 3 weeks away from regionals so he is making us have shorter mileage but more intense workouts. we have to start getting more speed so we can have better times. In regionals we have to make it into either first or second place to be guaranteed to make it to state. If you dont make it to first or second, you have to have one of the top ten times in the state, which is a very slim chance for me, so i would have to make it to first or second place at regionals!

This week in Track has been absolutely amazing. I have been steadly improving everyweek. Everytime coach sets a goal for me, i strive to make it so he will be proud of me. This week a ran a 2:46. I am getting better and better. I am up with sydney and the middle schoolers in track which definitely means i'm getting alot better. We are now getteing really close to regionals which will determine how many of us are going to state. We really want to get our 4x800 team into state because we are really good.

This week in track we had alot of fun, we are just taking it kind of easy. We had an Active rest day where we ran for 5 minutes and then walked for 5 minutes. We did this on the greenbelt and while we were halfway done coach randomly said lets have an arm wrestling tournament. Well we had some soccer girls running with us and some cheerleaders who all have really strong arms so i was pretty sure i wouldnt stay in for too long but it turned out that i was the strongest out of them all, i took them all down and i almost beat coach but i practically pulled a muscle in my arm so i had to let go. everyone was pretty impressed it was hillarious though because now everyone is scared of me haha. I love track so much.

This week has been a pretty normal, nothing too exciting, i have improved on my 800 by about 3 seconds, i am now running a 2:49 which is what my coach wanted me to run. So right now im pretty happy with myself, but i still want to et down into the lower 40's, i have alot of work ahead of me! Coach is planning more workouts so we can can pick up our speed during the races. hopefully by next week i can run a 2:46, thats coaches new goal for me.

Well since cross country is no more, it is now time for spring track. Our practices are now more intense but more helpful in our events. My event that im best at is the 800, now i'm definitely not the fastest that would be claire and taylor who run theirs in like 2 minutes and 30 seconds as thier fastest time. My first 800 that i ever ran was a 2:52, which was ok for my first time but coach said i needed to work on it some more. So most of our workouts consists of lots of sprints. We have had 2 workouts this week and they were really tough.

March 24-30

The past couple das have pretty good at practice. I officially have my hip back to normal and can run, sproint, and do whatever the heck i want to now. We had a track meet last tuesday and i did pretty good, i got 5th out of 38 girls but it wasn't the time me and my coach wanted me to get, but yesterday at our home track meet my coach put me in the 2 mile which i was really nervous about because i havent ran it before and i thought i wouldn't do very good. They ran the girls and the guys 2 mile together which was pretty embarassing considering i was lapped by andrew simons, but that didn't really bother me, he actually made me go a little faster, and i was in first place for a while but by the 6th lap i was starting to get really tired but i held my second place spot, and the minute i finished running i see my 4x400 team lining up to start the relay and i look at my coach and im like, i think im supposed to be in that race, and he was umm i dont think so, and then my entire relay team goes we need madolyn! and i was supposed to run the second leg but coach made me run 4th leg so i had at least a 3 minute break, and i ended up getting us 4th place out of 7 teams but it really hurt. But honestly im so glad to be running back to normal

Febuary 8-23

Well, the past few weeks havenot been the best for me. We have missed lots of school, which means we have lost alot of running. Our indoor track team recently went to Henderson to run a race and it was awful. We ran inside of a gym. The floor was half hardwood and half tile, it was ridiculous! and our run wasnt very good either so it was just not that good of a meet. And to make things worse i now have tendonitis in my hip and for a couple of days i wasnt able to walk, at all. So i havent been able to run with the girls and its killing me because i want to so bad. Mason Dixon is coming up in little over a week and im hoping my hip is better by then because it seems to keep getting worse. Mrs. Brunson my track coach, wants me to see the athletic trainer who is coming to the school tomorrow and have him check me out, because the thought of not running or being able to run Mason Dixon completely freaks me out. You have to qualify for the mason dixon and i had a qualifying time, so i will be crushed if i cant go. I really hope i can get this problem fixed.

Febuary 1-5

Well on Monday we did another 6 miles. But it wasn't what i was expecting, i was expecting a hard 6 mile run, but in actuality it was an easy pace and we had SO much fun. There was still a great amount of snow still on the ground and some of the roads were still icy. So we were having a fun run, we passed another big group of runners and my coach decided we should ambush them with a snowball fight. They quickly responded with more snowballs thrown at us, but we quickly ran away before any could fully hit us. Then my adopted daughter, Abby Eades, and my other child, Whitney, decided they should go ding, dong, ditch somebody's house. We were going through a neighbor hood and they both go off to find a house, but coach told the rest of us to go on so it wasn't so obvious, and they both come running back, and said they rang the doorbell but werent sure if anyone came or not. Then later on into the run we were all running when we smelled something horrible, and coach goes, "ok, who farted?" and we instantly knew who did it. She was the one person who never laughed about it the entire time. It was Ella, we were all cracking up, making jokes, and trying to find out who did it, and Ella kept quiet the entire time, so we automatically knew. We finished off our run and when we got back to the school we got down the ROTC rope and started swinging on it. Perfecting ending to a perfect run! oh and i absolutely love my coach, hes the greatest. On Tuesday i took the day off, even though i wasn't supposed too, but i had no one to run with, so i couldn't bring myself to run 6 miles all by my lonesome. on wednesdays run, we had a workout, and let me tell you it was a tough one. We had a latter workout on the track, we started with a 1000 meter run, then 800, 600, 400, 200, 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000. Well i wasn't starting out so good, because it was absolutely freezing outside. My hands could not move. When i bent them it was like trying to bend concrete. So by the time our second 600 comes around, coach fortney knows we are tired so he looks at us and he points to the middle schoolers and says, you need to run this 600 in 2:15 and he looks at me and says you need to run it in 2:30, and he goes, "if you run it at or below these times, we wont have to do the final 800 and 1000. so im pretty much dead and didn't think i could do it so we started, and i didnt feel like i was going very fast, but when i finished my coach was practically staring at me with his mouth open, and he goes, "where did that come from?! you ran that in 2:11!!" i just stared at him, i couldn't believe it, probably the best run of my life! Then on Thursday we had a recovery run, and we did 10 minutes running, and then 1 minute walking, it was the easiest run we have ever done! we were all talking so much and we had a really good time.

january 25-29

This week during cross country practice wasn't that exciting. this week i have been more tired than i have before. I've been loaded down with all kinds of homework, and ive been staying up late. Lately my days have consisted of waking up early, going to school, practice till 6:30, get home around 7 o'clock, take at least 30 minutes to eat, then do my AP U.S History homework and pre-cal till about 10 and then go to bed, and do it all again. My energy has been running thin thats for sure. So this week on monday we ran about 6 miles at a 7 minute pace and that was pretty tough but i made it through. On tuesday we didn't hae school because of snow, and coach couldn't run with us that day so i took a day off, but don't tell anybody! Then on wednesday we had a workout and i'm pretty sure i almost died. We had to do three 1 mile repeats and he wanted us to do them all out sprint as hard as you can, and i was so tired. I ran as hard as i could but i know i didn't do very good. I'm not that great at running hard for less than 2 miles. i'm better at running distance at a good pace. Thats why i run half marathons instead of measley little road races. So the entire time i was running i just wanted to stop and cry because i was so tired and our worouts and runs have been so tiring, but i pushed through and made it to the end of practice, coach always says discipline makes you tougher. Also i think last weekend was our UK track meet, which was SO much fun. I got second place in my 800 race and our team didnt do so good in the 4x800 because one of our runners wouldn't hand me the baton so we lost some time and a couple of places. But it was lots of fun hanging out with mallory and sydney and claire bear.....our freshman. Anyways, this thursday we did another six miles at 8 minute pace but i ran it at about 7:30 pace, and thankgoodness Friday is an off day. As much as i love running and could never stop, i sure hate it sometimes!

This week has been a crazy week so far. On Monday our coach planned out for us a tough workout. He had us running on the track doing 3x600's and 6x300's. I was doing pretty good and was keeping a very good pace, and on our 5th 300 my coach looks at me and he says i want you to be in the lead when you hit 200 meters. So we began. In the lead for the first 100 was my friend jamie, and then we came up on the 200 mark. When we passed the pole, i don't know what came over me. All i knew was all of a sudden i was in front of the entire team, speeding ahead, and hardly out of breath. My coach was screaming, "Go, Go, Go!" and my friends sydneys dad was telling me to get my butt up there. In the last 10 meters claire started catching up to me and just barely passed me, but i wasn't too upset because what i had just done, i had never pictured myself to be able to do, and i have to admit i was pretty proud of myself. Then on Tuesday we were supposed to run 5 miles but i had become sick that morning and was not able to run that day, but i see it as a well deserved break! Then on Wednesday we had a 6 mile run, what we did was we ran a steady pace for 10 minutes and then did 90 seconds of all out sprint, and then we slowed back to our normal pace for about a minute, then did 60 seconds all out sprint, and then normal pace for a minute, and then we did 30 seconds all out sprint and then normal pace for another ten minutes. We did this twice and finished our 6 miles in about 45 minutes, which is pretty good. Oh and i forgot to mention that the entire time we ran this, it was raining. On Thursday we did another 6 miles with our coach, and this run was a CP run, which means coach's pace so our run wasn't so easy. But it was definitely an interesting run, our coach was feeling a little adventerous, which he does quite a bit, and he took us running into a area that had a cluster of medical buildings in it. He suddenly stops at one of the buildings and goes, yall come in here with me, i have an apppointment i need to go to real quick, and we all just kind of stand there like,"are you serious?" so we follow him and he goes to the water fountain, gets a drink, turns around and goes just kidding, and starts cracking up, so we follow him out and he takes us up this steep hill and once we get over the hill we see a graveyard right below, and of course, he wants to run through it. So for about 15 minutes we run around in a graveyard, and it was creepy because it was dark and raining. We eventually finish and come back to the school to do some 8 minutes abs, not my favorite, and then he lets us go home. This Saturday we have our first indoor track meet, of which i will be running the 800 and the 4x800 but its going to be one long day. We leave at 6:45 in the morning, we drive 3 hours to Lexington to go to the UK meet, then my race doesn't start till 3:42 and my last race is at 7:45, and we have to go eat afterwards, so i wont be getting home till real late, but oh well. Just another life in the day of what my friends call me, "a running freak."

This week as a cross country runner it has been pretty interesting. We had about 3 inches of snowfall last week, and this week it still hadn't melted. So on Monday our plan was to run 40-45 minutes, but our plan drastically changed when we noticed how icy and snowy, and full of slush our roads were. So what we decided was we were going to run about 6 miles but at an easy pace so we can be careful on the trecherous roads. About halfway through our run, my coach spots a little kid playing in the snow outside of his house and my coach goes, "Hey guys watch this." My team stops as we watch our coach pick up a ball of snow, chunk it at the kid and then run like a maniac down the road. We ran after him, and i was like, "Coach did you know that kid?" and he replies, "Nope." We all just started laughing. (He does crazy stuff like this all the time.) Then on tuesday coach said he wouldn't be running with us so me and some of my teammates, Sydney, Jamie, and Madison, decided we would go for a short 5 mile run. We reach our halfway point which just so happened to be greatharvest and we went inside to get some bread samples, and then headed back home. On Wedensday we had a workout, we hate workouts, but fortunately we had it cut short because there was black ice all over the roads. He had planned that we were going to run 3x1,000 meters and 5x200 meter sprints. We were so happy when he cut it short because we were all slipping and falling and he was afraid we would get hurt. It was also getting very dark and some of our girls were running into poles. Thursday was an interesting day, We ran the frederica loop which is about 6 and a half miles. This run goes right through the middle of town, and we are always having to dodge cars. While i was running across a bridge a car came over the white line and was heading straight for me but fortunately the moved over fast enough before they could hit me. It was pretty scary. Our cross country team never has a boring run. It's always full of suprises, excitement, and sometimes exhaustion. This weekend we are going for a 7 mile run, then stopping at startbucks for some coffee. Its going to be a blast