Right now, I'm coming off a down week where I had to take 3 days off to shake this weird soar throat I had. It was so painful that it hurt even to swallow food or drink water. I went to the doctor's office, and was told that the lymph nodes around my neck are swollen and that I was still recovering from whatever I had a few weeks back (right before the UMD meet where I still PRd by 30 seconds despite being sick.)
Nevertheless, she gave me a flu shot and a H1N1 swine flu "mist" to help my immune system since the doses would be too small to adversely affect me.
I ran 6 miles yesterday, and 9 miles today, and finally feel 100%. I will consider last week an extreme "down week".
My season has gone like this:
Bentley race, finished first along with the top 4 guys, two 80-85 mile weeks, then UMD where i was 5th for the guys, then 2 weeks down like 60-50, then two weeks at 85, then New Englands where I was 6th on the team, but bombed.
So, overcoming this sickness has been a pretty ridiculous affair. It's been a month long process of recovery, and I guess I may have tried to come back too fast by running 85 mile weeks leading up to New Englands.
Anyways, the guys and girls have kicked ass. We've only run our full squad for two meets; the girls have not even run a full squad at any of the meets yet.
Paul has been dominating D3 runners, at New Englands he was right behind All American and 2 time Regional Winner Edgar Kosgei from Williams. Paul was 6th in the meet, out of all division 1 2 and 3 runners with an 8k time of 24:41. The time was so impressive, because he ran that same time at a much faster course (UMD) four weeks ago.
Dan Anastos ran a 25:26 this past weekend at the Albany invite. He was our #1 runner at the meet, we didn't race Paul, Chris, Marc, or Devon (our consistent top 4). It's a breakthrough performance for Dan, whose previous 8k best was 26:20. This should solidly put him up there with our top 4 which is great news for our team.
Dan has had his struggle with figuring out how to get to the next level during the past two years at Brandeis. I'm wicked proud of him for this race. It means a lot to me, and to him for sure. We were freshman year roommates, and he's one of my best buddies at school. We've been through a lot and it's awesome to see him get to where we knew he could be.
Our rankings will probably fluctuate a lot because not enough coaches will be aware of this, or even look at the results of the meets. John knows what he is doing, and he's playing it safe with a lot of our teammates who are coming back slowly from injuries or sicknesses.
The goal is to be ready for the end of the season; UAAs, Regionals, and Nationals.
Indoor track is also looming in the near future. UAAs is my main concern at this point, if I can get a few workouts in then I may be able to race well and possibly be in the top 7 that races at Regionals. It's not up to me, it's up to who will step it up at the next meet. We want our best 7 guys to run at regionals and nationals.
I'll update again soon. The season hasn't gone as well as planned, but I still may have a shot at racing well. I put in a ton of good work in August and September. Hopefully I can get back to the fitness I had during the beginning of the season, and if not, no worries, our best guys will run at regionals, and track is in the near future.
