She knows her dreams

Yvette ran a good race on Sunday. For Yvette. She has a long way to go to reach her potential, and I have a lot of work to whip her butt into some serious shape; she enjoyed that race so much that she came home and started scouring the internet for local races to get her ass moving faster - so as her coach, I gotta get busy so that she starts to see vast improvements. Quickly. That Yvette has no rest for the weary, she's hungry and ready to go! She has dreams and she's not afraid of them!!!

Yvette started up close to the front of the pack, with some 4000 runners I told her not to get too far back or it'd take her til Christmas to get to the start and she'd spend countless minutes weaving and getting frustrated. She listened, she's such a good student. I told her not to go out at a neck-braking 400M interval pace at the start, which is every newbie runner's mistake. And every veteran runner's mistake. It's repeatedly my mistake, I am a pro at that one. She hit the first mile at 8:15. She listened, excellent. I told her the first half of this race is entirely uphill, albeit gradual uphill but uphill is uphill and it takes some extra leg muscle to keep at it for 7 miles, so just maintain a controlled even pace so she'd have energy left after the turn-around point where it became a gradual downhill to the finish. She listened, she's such a good girl. She hit the half-way point maintaining about a 8:25 pace. I was encouraged, this is the pace I hope she can do her marathon in come October so this was excellent marathon pace training for her, nothing more. Ohhhhh, but as she turned the corner and started heading downhill, the sun started shining bright bringing warmer-than-she's-used-to temps and legs that hadn't run 13 consecutive miles in a month, on a heel that's been prone to cause her agony on every run, and carrying that XL weight with her -by mile 9, she was scrambling to beat that dreaded 9 minute mile by landing a 8:57. Phew, that was close. Mile 10 wasn't any better at 8:54 and mile 11 had an uphill, which I'm not sure how they snuck that in cuz that certainly wasn't there on the out part earlier in the race. Someone must have called in some excavators to throw all for a loop here. Still, she squeaked under that unwanted 9 min, yay!! Mile 12, I told her to get in some Gatorade, despite the fact it potentially could cause her stomach to cramp, like it does mine; but she needed some quick carbs to fuel her last mile and by golly, it worked and she clocked an 8:23 and crossed her first ever 1/2 marathon earning her precious green-ribboned medal.

Yay, Yvette!!!! So even though I had higher hopes for Yvette running better than her overall 8:33 pace, cuz this is slower than her hopeful marathon pace this fall, she ran smart and controlled and had no heel issues at all during the race (but later that afternoon, she told me it was totally screaming at her....err) and didn't die running 13 miles. Actually, 13.23 miles according to her Garmin (I told her not to weave but I guess water stops do become a necessity and darting across others to quench the thirst is ok. This time. I'm thinking maybe I need to train her to go without; like carb-depleted runs, maybe there's such a thing as training yourself to be H20 depleted?? Probably not), she ran an ok race. I'm going to do my very best to whip her into prime marathon racing shape - I hope she listens and is the good girl she showed me she can be!

I'm not sure what's next on Yvette's racing schedule, she's been perusing the internet and talking with various running friends to find some races which I think would be good for her. June is a busy race month in Colorado so maybe we'll pick up a race or 4, just to get her some much-needed speedwork. We are bypassing the famous Bolder Boulder 10K this year, due to the fact that 55,000 runners causes a very serious cramp in our day to do anything else. I've been waffling about this race for a month now but decided this year isn't Yvette's year to race it; you either race it or you lolly-gag it for fun, and we're not about fun right now, we're about action and with a heavy heart, we decided she's just not ready for Boulder right now.

Eerie, Yvette looks strikingly like someone I know!!

I apologize for my lack of blogging and blogging reading, this has been a very crazy week with graduating seniors' last week of school. Today was the senior exit assembly and I'm always really emotional - excited for them as they hit a milestone and make their way to adulthood, to the world that awaits their hopes and dreams, but sad to lose some very special people who've touch my heart. Farewell to all my seniors; if you conduct yourselves with honor and emulate the standards set for you, you WILL succeed in whatever you choose to do. Guaranteed!

To the graduating class of 2010: "I hope your dreams take you to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known." ~ Yvette (she knows her dreams!!)