Daniel Wallis: Two more deep

For the two or three who read my blog, I apologise for the delay in updates. We recently lost a flatmate, well.. we didn't lose him, he decided to turn into a big tosser and bugger off and bail on the lease and take the internet and sick cable package with him. So for anyone interested in a move to the states, we have a room available. Very cheap rent: US$287 a month. Keen to use the rest of that eligibility, Physeder? DC maybe? We have room for a cot.

To the point: 

Two weeks after Dellinger we headed to Pre-Nats. Training had been going very well, with still a high level of volume and intensity the week before Pre-Nats/after Dellinger. The week of heading to the meet though we cut down the training.. Tuesday was 15x200 on the grass in around 32-33 w/ 60ses jog. It was a decent effort but the next three days were just jogging. The change in training left me feeling pretty flat in the race. At Pre-Nats you have to get out well.. I didn't. I just didn't have the pop in my legs. I ended up going through the mile in 130+ when I wanted to be in the 60's. Its so hard to judge though with all the people, I feel like you are either at the front or at the back. Unlike last year though I kept my head in it and kept passing people, moving wide on the very muddy/slow course and making my way up to 82nd by the end. I finished with a time of 24.56 -- faster than last year on a much slower course. Berryhill and I agreed that considering how I felt, it was a good effort and I took a lot from it: mainly that I can still run the middle/end well after being way back at the start. I also made the move to no.1 guy on the team which usually happens at about this time of year as our other top guy starts to fall to pieces.

This weekend was Conference, and to put it bluntly, was bloody terrible.

The tuesday after Pre-Nats I sat out the workout, I was not injured or sick but was pretty drained from the weekend. We were also going through dramas with the house and I felt like if I pushed it, I could potentially end up putting myself in a hole as the whole team has pretty much had the flu. I just ran easy for 4 days and ran the workout out on Friday: 18" tempo followed by a mile and an 800. Splits were 4.37 and 2.15 w/ 3mins rest. Felt good to get moving after a pretty stale week. This week (week of conference) we had workouts planned for monday and weds -- to keep the legs moving a bit more than before pre-nats to prevent that flat feeling. Berryhill had commented to me that this is the hardest time for him to write workouts as doing too much can make us tired, and too little will leave us flat. The workouts were as follows: 

Mon: 10x400 w/ 2mins jog. (all on grass). Averaged around 65-66. Felt very comfortable/relaxed.

Weds: 10x150 w/ 150 jog. Ran on indoor track. All around 23secs. Easy.

Weds was supposed to be 200's outside but we were bombarded with a huge snowstorm and going outside was not an option.. hence the indoor 150's. We didn't do 200's as that would mean even more harsh tiurns on the track and we haven't touched it for a year.

I hate winter. Fort Collins is crazy though, today it is warm and sunny and all the snow is melting after a week of negative temp's.

And to Conference...

I went in feeling confident having raced and beaten a lot of good guys in our conference over cross and on the track. We figured Top 10 would be a good day, top 8 would be great.

The course was in a great spot, a golf course right by the mountains in Provo, UT.. the Mormon capital of the USA and lamest college town in the world. Also the Top conservative city in the US, really my style! Race was was cold: under 5C.. Course had some long, gradual hills which were made all the tougher being at altitude. Long story short, I felt shit. I couldnt even hang with the top 10 for a mile. It wasn't for lack of trying though, I just didn't have it on the day. I ended up a miserable 18th being beaten by some huge shit-kickers.. All I can take away from it was I scrapped under 25mins at altitude with 24.59. Absolute shite. Whats tough is that guys who I finished right around at Pre-Nats on what I felt was an off day, were right around the top 10 this past weekend.

It seems to be the trend though, it takes me a few weeks to adjust to the change in training, the same thing happened last year when I ran shit at Conference then beat a lot of the same guys to just miss out on All-Region at the Mountain Regional, hopefully the story is the same this year.. except this time I will be shitting bricks if I am not Top 25 at Regionals.

I haven't really spoken to Berryhill yet, except that I am frustrated at not running well at this meet. I know he is as well though.. I am fit, am just in that transition period right now. The plan as always been to peak for Regionals but Conference is important to us and I wanted to feel good.. shit happens I guess.

Two more weeks left till Regionals in New Mexico.

Keep it deep.

d-wal