Week 6

Millrose Games was a great meet. The Wannamaker mile was very exciting. The JR boys mile was also great to watch. Merber certainly represented NY and the bloggers well. My race was... less than memorable but better than last week, so what can I say? It certainly couldn't have been worse than I ran at BIG so I only had one way to go. Honestly I felt almost exactly the same as I did at Boston. My legs were dead early and never got better. At least this week I sat back and was able to work up a little. At one point it seemed like I would be able to move up more, but I had nothing. Congrats to Jillian Smith - she is running amazingly well right now and deserves the spotlight she is earning. I am excited to see how fast she goes this year. For me, it is three weeks of training before trying a 3k.

My week of training (if you want to call it that):

Monday - Hard workout on the roads of Greenwich (5 x 4 minute intervals with 2 minutes rest). I felt really good and probably ran too fast (too close to mile race pace - I guess I punished myself a little for the race on Saturday)

Tuesday - Tried some reps but hamstring tightened up (breathing was very bad). Like Shelby I have asthma and some days are better than others. This was one of those days where the air was cool and moist... I tried to run some 300's on the track - which had most of the inside lane clear of ice, except about a third of it where we had to run into lane 2. I did two before I tightened up. I jogged a couple of miles and called it quits

Wednesday - Easy 6 miles - trying to loosen up.

Thursday - Easy 5 miles - hamstring felt better and I continued working on loosening up.

Friday - Race. We were planning to leave at about noon, but with the freezing rain coming we decided to leave at 8:00am. We stopped frequently along the way as the roads became treacherous from Albany to Kingston. We waited at a rest area for a while for a plow to pass by, and then got back on the road. We arrived at the Garden at about 3:30pm, had a wrap at a deli across the street and then went in and waited. Before the race I warmed up with Kristin and Jillian King, and stretched with Jillian, who kept me laughing because she was so nervous. It was another great experience.

Saturday - 6 mile recovery run with my brother. He is in 8th grade and should be a runner to watch over the next few years. Watch for him at NSIC in the new JR High Mile. He should be ready to go.

Thanks for reading... and if you see me at a meet... say Hi! I really enjoy getting to meet athletes from other teams. It seems like such a nice part of the sport - that athletes can be competitors, acquaintances and even friends.


Week 5

Boston Indoor Games was incredible! The Reebok people again put on a meet that will be tough to beat, no matter where I race for the rest of the year. To watch world records and amazing performances (especially Kim Smith and Mottram – WOW!) was such a great experience, and while I had a rough race (understatement)… I left Boston knowing that I crashed and burned running the race the way I wanted to run it. Before the race I thought about sitting in the pack and running along at whatever pace the field set (like last year when the pace was something like 2:35 through the 800), or I could keep the race at least a little faster and hopefully help everyone run fast (that was supposed to include me). It just wasn’t my day. I had dead legs from the gun. The pace was not even that fast, going through the 1,000 at like 3:04. I just wasn’t myself and next week or three weeks from now or even two months from now I will have another opportunity to run fast. I will just have to get back to training and try to figure out why the legs failed me.

Anyway… time to look ahead. Millrose is Friday and again I am excited to run, watch and experience one of the great American track meets. Hopefully I can run better and leave knowing that I did my best.

Cold temperatures and no track again this week.

Training for the week…

Monday – No school, 8 miles easy with drills, strides and core work… light lifting in the evening

Tuesday – warm-up followed by a 40 minute run with 2 minute pickups (at CI pace) and 1 minute recovery for about 30 minutes of the run… strides and drills (about 7 miles)

Wednesday – No track again so we opted for fartlek on the roads (another 40 minute run with 1 minute at R pace and 3 minutes at recovery)… drills and strides (about 7 miles)

Thursday – Easy 6 mile run before leaving for Boston

Friday – easy 5 miles with several of the BIG girls (they were really pretty small). We visited the Reebok headquarters and had a long (Q & A) session with the Reebok athletes. We tried to watch a movie but couldn’t get the hotel movie to work. I had dinner with almost all the runners. It was a really fun day!

Saturday – slowest mile I have run since 7th grade, but I had a great time, spent some time with a great group of runners and enjoyed a great dinner. Thanks Reebok!!

Sunday – Easy 5 miles at Hudson Valley Community College where my sister was racing. My brother has been really sick and didn’t race.

This week the weather is supposedly going to be better. We may have a few days where the temperature will get above freezing and some of the ice will melt from the track. That would be nice for a lot of runners in upstate NY.



Week 4

Ok, here it goes...

This was an exciting week. The invitation to Millrose was really nice. I have missed qualifying a few times so it will be really nice to step on that track again. I did get to run on the track at MSG when I was in 8th grade, when Hannah and I ran a middle school 800m. That same weekend Emily Fung and I ran the mile at the Colgate Women's Games. I am also really excited to run at BIG next weekend.

Following a pretty good week of training, I was very pleased with my 1200m leg of the DMR at Yale. My coach had my split at 3:33.0 despite a botched handoff where an official was moving my teammate as I reached the zone. We nearly collided and I had to hand the baton off almost backwards (not really my teammate's fault... this was her first real relay and she hasn't worked handoffs much yet). Our team won the small school DMR with a 12:17 - not bad for a bunch of distance runners!

My week of training included:

Monday - an easy 6 mile run (about 7 minute pace) with strides and drills. I did some light lifting and core work in the evening

Tuesday - Tempo run (about 20 minutes) with drills and strides

Wednesday - 4 X 800m with 1 minute rest at about 2:40 + some 200m at 31/32. (Afterwards we went out to dinner to celebrate my sister's 16th birthday).

Thursday - Easy 5/6 mile run with drills and strides. I did some light lifting and core work in the evening

Friday - ran the DMR at Yale with a total of about 6 miles

Saturday - ran about 7 miles easy with some more drills and strides

Sunday - Longer run was on the schedule - but the temp was in the teens and the wind was blowing so I cut it short at about 7 miles.

My brother had a rough race at Yale. He left his bag on the chartered bus that brought us to Yale and then left. He had no racing shoes, uniform (or toothbrush). We scrounged around for stuff for him. He looked pretty funny wearing my uniform top (XS), a pair of my cousin's basketball shorts and his trainers. I think people were wondering what he was thinking.

So far this indoor season I have been doing workouts based on the weather instead of what is on the schedule. This week I did a CI workout and a tempo run, so at Yale I decided to run the 1200m instead of the 3000m. I figured I needed some speed and I might as well get in when I could get on the track. By the looks of the weather forecast for this week, we are in for some more cold weather... so I will probably be doing more slow stuff and save the fast workouts for another week.

That is all for now...


Week 3

We had a beautiful week of weather in upstate New York. It was a nice change from last week. I was able to get in some quality workouts and broke out the shorts and t-shirts for a few 60-degree days...but unfortunately I caught a cold and pumped lots of Zicam and Cold-eze all week. As of Sunday afternoon the weather has turned colder, and we are expecting about 7 inches of snow, so a snowday would be nice!

My workouts for the week included:

Monday- 7 mile run with drills and strides

Tuesday- Ladder rep workout (200,300,400,400,300,200) x2

Wednesday- 2 mile warm-up, 10 min. easy, 10 min. tempo, 10 minute easy.

Thursday- Easy 6 mile run with drills and strides

Friday- Easy 5 "pre-race", with drills and strides

Saturday- Race at Dartmouth, Mile - 4:55+

Sunday- Long Run (about 8.5)

This was a good week. Training was great and I felt really comfortable racing. This was a pretty busy week for me. I went to a concert with my little sister on Wednesday, and had dinner with some friends on Thursday (a tradition that we started back in the Fast Lane days with Nicole [Blood]!). I'm really excited about the races coming up, I'm thinking just a relay at Yale, and hopefully (knock on wood) the weather will stay decent so training will be as good as this past week...though I doubt it.


Week 2

This was a rough week for training. I usually have a training plan that I follow no matter what (kind of the come rain, shine yada yada kind of thing). Unfortunately this hasn't always worked well for me. I think at times I have forced myself to do workouts when either my body wasn't ready or when the weather and conditions have made it unwise. So... this week I took a different approach.

On Sunday I got my week off to a fun, but not very productive start, as far as running goes. I ran for about an hour before meeting up with a few friends from the team for lunch and some Wii boxing. Cady Kuzmich, Roxanne Henningson, my sister Brittney and I battled for several rounds. Although I put up quite a fight, I have decided to stick to running as I lost to everyone. We had a lot of fun, but I found myself unable to lift my arms for the next two days. This did not help my training.

I decided to take the next day (New Years Eve) off to rest my poor arms and to visit with my cousins, who were in town for the holiday. My cousin Bobby lives in New Canaan, CT, and his sister Natalie lives in LA and is a regular on the FX show "Rescue Me". We enjoyed a traditional family New Years and watched the ball drop together.

The next morning I intended to get in some kind of tempo run, but the snow started falling early and never stopped. We ventured out for a try, but the roads were treacherous so we decided to do some cross training ("Turbo Jams" and "Gilad" and lifted some weights).

So far, the week was not going so well... I haven't taken consecutive days off without injury in a long time. Things wouldn't get a whole lot better for those of us from upstate NY, the weather became extremely cold and the roads remained snow covered. With wind chills at or below zero, I decided to do some treadmill running and elliptical work at a local health club on Wednesday and Thursday. The club was really crowded so I had a hard time getting in the time I wanted to.

On Friday I was finally able to get in some quality running - a few three minute cruise intervals as part of the run. The country roads of Greenwich were still not in great shape. Finally on Saturday, I got in about six miles easy and ran a small local track meet on Sunday at Union College's wonderfully square, 160m indoor track. (How can an area as loaded with quality runners as the capital region of NY have the most pathetic indoor tracks on the planet??) Sam Roecker from Burnt Hills and I ran basically side by side. It was a pretty exciting race. (Note Lane won in 2:58.5 – 3:00.2)

This was a frustrating week of training. With forecasts for nicer weather, I will get some good work in this week and I think I will avoid video games altogether. Next up is Dartmouth, where I suppose I should run the mile to try to qualify for Millrose, but the 1000m would probably be a smarter option to work on my speed for 1500s and miles later in the season.


Week 1

Happy New Years everyone! My name is Caitlin Lane and I run for Greenwich Central School in a small town east of Saratoga Springs. I have been running competitively for a long time and while the road hasn’t always been smooth, it has been enjoyable and I am looking forward to opening a new chapter at Penn State next year.

I have been asked to submit a weekly entry for the weeks leading up to the Millrose Games and as 2007 comes to a close, I am feeling pretty good and am looking forward to 2008.

As far as training goes, I have had several well documented injuries over the past few indoor seasons. My goal for this season is to stay healthy first and foremost and to continue to train consistently. I opened my season with a few decent races and hope to improve on them at Dartmouth and Yale before racing at BIG(Boston Indoor Games). I have decided at least early in the season to select one race per meet to stay fresh and try to avoid injury with maybe a relay or two later in the season. I have had some issues in past years with muscle imbalances and have spent a lot of time and energy working to correct them. I usually work on core strength and specific leg muscles (using Wharton’s Rope – something I learned at the Running School – and thera-bands). I have also added some arm work (“Rockband” - playing the drums with my brother and sister on guitar and vocals).

Over the last week my training/racing has been more normal than for the past month. Our track has finally lost the layer of ice that has been covering it since early December, so I was able to get on the track twice this week. Daily, my training looked like this…

SUN– longer run (about 8 miles) at about 7:00 pace
MON– Repetition Intervals on the track 6 x 300m at 51/51/51/51/53/48 (with full recovery) 4 x 200m at 32/32/31/31
TUE– Easy 6 miles with strides and drills (about 6:50 pace)
WED– Cruise Intervals (6 x 800m) all at between 2:45 and 2:50 with one minute rest
THU– Easy 6/7 miles with strides and drills (7 minute pace)
FRI– Easy 6 miles with strides and drills (7 minute pace)
SAT– race at Brown (Mile – 4:57). “

For December in Greenwich, NY this was a pretty unusual week. We usually can’t get on the track and would have to modify everything to run on roads. “

One last note… It was amazing how well our section of NY (section 2) ran at the Brown Invitational. It seemed like we were at or near the top in every event and in the mile we went 1, 2, 3, and 6 of the top 8. It is always so nice to run with such a talented and friendly group of girls. It is exciting to see the Burnt Hills and Holy Names girls running so well and to run side by side with Hannah, who I feel like in many ways I have grown up with, is nice… especially after so many years of competing.