Well the weekend has been and gone and I'm back from Iowa and my 5km. 

The race was not what we expected and was a far cry from the year before. 
The field was deep on paper, and i was ranked 9th with my 14.23 from last year. 
Everything was magic up till around 3000m. I hit around 8.31-ish and was feeling
good just sitting in the pack following the train. Unfortunately the leaders then fell
to pieces and the pace dropped big time. I found myself moving from around 10th to
4th in the matter of a couple of laps and was pretty much in no mans land. I lost a lot
of time in that 4th km and although i pulled together a solid last 800, I finished 4th 
in 14:24.49. 

Pretty disappointed to be honest as i am in much better shape than that - just wasn't
the race we thought it would be. I have been training very much on the strength side
of things as outdoors is the priority but believed (and still do) that I could run 14.10 and
qualify for WUXC. I would love to have another crack but the qualifying period was
essentially just indoor season and had too be at sea-level, which meant I only had one
real chance over 5000m - while the 10'000 standard (30.30) was never going to be an
option as they certainly don't run that indoors anymore!!! I'm glad I had a crack though
and have made it clear I am still available for selection as Canada is just up the road
and I believe I can be very competitive at that meet. 

Finally have a week off from racing this week as I had raced the past 4 weekends in a row.
I'm also feeling a lot better than last week as I was starting to feel quite run down before
traveling. The plan now is Conference next weekend where I will be running the 5km/3km
double - 6 days after that we will be traveling to the Ben Brown Invite in Fullerton, CA to
open up the outdoor season. At that meet last year I ran 14.23 to win the B race, this year
I will be hanging close to the front in the A race. That race will essentially dictate what happens
for the rest of the season. If I can run 14.0X I will likely have a good enough time to make it 
to the National Qualifying Meet, so will have a lot of options in terms of training and racing for
the rest of the season. Tentative schedule after that is Stanford and Mt.Sac. 

Not much more from me - just looking forward to some more solid training and Conference! 

d-wal.