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Track and Field Blogs - Molly Huddle

Heading into the Trials

June 17, 2008

6/17/08:

The long awaited first day of the Olympic Trials is only 10 days away and as I notice every commercial, Today show segment and magazine article about the Olympic Games, I get a nervous/excited knot in my gut. I can't decide whether I'd feel better if I could push the clock hands forward or wind them back. I can't wait to get on the track and make it happen, yet I sometimes find myself thinking I want time for one more 5 mile tempo, a few more 70's around the oval, or even one extra session of pumping iron at Gold's Gym. So I think it's normal for these little doubts to creep up on us, especially as our season's biggest races are on the horizon, but upon looking back at the earlier weeks of the old log, some of which I'll share in a moment, I'm realizing "dang, I've done a lot of work." Time to psych up and count all the hay bales in the barn.

This last week I just got some base miles in and 2 workouts after a few days off for a sore calf. On Monday I did a 5-mile tempo on the bike path at 5:34 pace with a 3 mile warmup and 3 mile cool down. It was during the humid heat wave here, so despite going at 10am, it was sort of like doing a tempo run in the shower...all the better for Beijing, right? An easy 4 in the evening made it about 15 miles for the day. On Tuesday I did an easy 4 followed by a brutal 1x sit on the beach and eat a hot dog (my coach wants me to "avoid a state of tiredness" so I thought that was a good way). On Wednesday, I did an easy 12 miles at some trails and saw various wildlife such as chipmunks, old people, small dogs and a dead snake, which helped pass the 84 minutes. On Thursday I did an easy 7 and 4 with a few strides at the end. It was back to the track for the first time in a few weeks on Friday. I had an easy 3 in the morning, then in the evening I had a 3 mile warm-up and cool down, a few drills and 5 by 1200 with 2 min rest at 3:45 range to ease into things. I was really missing the girls I train with, my coach and the assistant coach, who is nice enough to pace us in his free time since I was working out alone that day for the first time in a while. The next day I did a really easy 7 and 3 and some light core work at the gym for half an hour. Sunday I did a good 10 miler and called it a day, rounding out about 75 miles for the week, which has been the average for track season so far.

So, while this week's workload wasn't really mind blowing; I trust in the consistent weeks of fall base work behind me, and just focus on the little things to get me feeling good on race day. For the next week and a half, I'm maintaining and not straining as I narrow my focus on the prize of making the US Olympic team.

- Molly Huddle