day.11.fastandfurious

Finally, the day has come when Mr. Martinez now respects my running. For the 3 years we have worked together, we have bonded over our love of running races, but he can't help but shake his head every time I tell him my finish time.

"Why don't you coach cross country or track? You are just so awesome at running!" I asked him one day (while trying to get him to cover my track meet shift for me - a little flattery never hurts). He simply replied something along these lines:

     "....because of people like you. People who don't push themselves and want to win. That's why I don't coach."

Ouch, right? But I'm used to it. Mr. Martinez and Ms. Martinez often show me tough love. I'm surprised that it actually works every now and then. Did this time.

Today, I told him about yesterday's victory. He was very impressed and when I returned at the end of the day (for my usual stealing of quality worksheets), he had printed out the following items:

 

Mr. Martinez agreed with me that I could do a better time than 30 minutes. I just wasn't sure what better times looked like for women my age in the valley. So he did the research - without me asking! What a man. Based on yesterday's run, I could have totally beat the two women in the first list! But that was a small race that both of us actually did last summer, so he showed me these results from a larger one:

Yeah apparently people in the 25-29 age group run faster than the 20-24 age group. Why didn't I do this last year?!

So I still have my 30 minute no stopping goal, but I want to add something to it. This year, I would like to place in the top 3 in a race that has MORE than 3 people in it! And no, I will not be inviting all you young ladies. Got to keep my competition low. I also want to beat the 27:39 time. So there you go - lesson learned? Having small goals can build you up to having even bigger ones later. Just set the goal and build off of it! Also - keep people like Martinez around. People like him make you a better person. Even if it takes 3 years to realize it.

Day.11.5k.total.time: 35:12 with a 11:14 min/mile pace. My legs were super tired and Martinez gave me permission to not have to always have a better time than the day before. So today Kieley, Jack and I hit up the track to do strength interval training!