Luke Beauchamp's training log

Today was the State Championships. I've fallen behind on my Running Blog so I will just resume here. Today I got out pretty strong, but since everybody at the state meet goes out really fast, that put me at like 40th place for the first 800. By the time I got to the mile, which I believe was 4:53 or so, I was in 25th. I started picking off people who still meant business pretty well at this point in the race. Unfortunately it had become fairly strung out up front due to Justin Janke ditching everyone while I was moving through the people who thought they were running the 1600. That meant I was always at the front of a group trying to reach somebody who was 10-20 yards in front of me. Thus, I spent a large portion of the race in no man's land with a small pack of 5 or so people feeding off of each other and moving up 10 yards behind me, but at the same rate as me. I hit 2 miles at like 10:02 and kept trying to get the pack 20 yards ahead of me, in which one straggler came in 15:44 but most were around 15:35-15:38. Unfortunately, the distance was too hard to make up. Central Kitsap's number 1 blew by me with 800 to go and kicked it in at 15:38. Not surprising given how fast he's run so far this season and given his 800m speed. Tom from Juanita and the Bainbridge kid both challenged me in the final stratch but I held them off and came in 15:46.0, matching my PR down to the tenth of a second. The straggler from the pack ahead of me was a Ballard kid who had not been a factor up front this season up to this point. Peter and the Ballard kid who beat me at Districts both ran strangely well and came in 3-4 with 15:20 and 15:25, which was really confusing mostly due to the Ballard guy. Garfield guy ran 15:39.5. I was the 5th district 2 finisher and 12th overall. It was a pretty good race relative to how I've run this season. However, I'm not very happy with where my season ended up but I guess I need to keep in mind that my mileage is still quite low and that I did not really have a Summer of training. I qualified for BorderClash, which is nice. Will came in near his PR with 15:59, Joseph ran a giant PR and ran 15:57. Our typical 7th runner, Dante, ran 16:37, also a sizable PR, but that's where the positives stop for Interlake. Raymond, who could probably run around 16:20, ran 16:36. Bryce got his leg stepped on or something and rolled his ankle, which prevented him from finishing. Matthew was feeling off and ran 16:38. We knew 4 teams were in competition for the win, and we got 4th out of those teams. If our 4 and 5 had been around 16:20, which is conservative for Matthew, we would have taken a close second to North Central. I still have BorderClash to run an impressive race and I also feel positive about the room I have to grow for track season.

I've fallen behind in posting, but in general I've been doing consistent runs of a solid distance but a little less mileage than before. Great workout on the track today. 48 degrees out tonight and a little wet, but not too rainy when I was running. 8x400 in my trainers with a lap jog of rest. My splits were very consistent: 64, 63, 63, 63, 64, 63, 62, 63 in that order. The last time I did this I was in great shape earlier this year during track season, a few days before my injury popped up. In that one I ran 5 67s and 3 66s. On that one I also went really slow on the lap jog. This one couldn't have given me much more than my rest for the 800 workout last week. Either way, I haven't ever run 400s this fast even in my spiked workouts. So, I think the development I've been seeing, although not visible for cross country, only comes into play on the track, so I'm likely to surprise quite a few people in the 1600 this Spring. Also we had the banquet today, and Chris Watson baked me a pretzel shaped like my name, which was glorious. I also received as captain's gifts an America hat and some flashing gloves, combined with Shrek-colored shwings and light-up shoelaces. Additionally, I received a large bag or Doritos to enjoy after my season ends. My team spoils me.

Probably my highest-quality Cross Country performance. I think that my run today showed what I'm capable of doing well in a way I hadn't yet this season. I believe that I was ranked around 40th of the overall Washington runners, all of whom came to the race except for Peter, who was there for the run-through the day before but disappeared on race day. Thus, my goal was to pass a few guys ranked ahead of me and be top 50. The race goes out hard and so I started out pretty much last, although I was going at a strong pace. The course was narrow and it was very difficult to pass, so moving up was very difficult. At first, I slowly made my way up past a bunch of guys, mostly Oregon, that I didn't recognize. Then I realized I was passing some guys who were ranked slightly behind me who I was a little worried about, and I started to get more comfortable with how my race was going. I kept passing and started going by people who were of my speed and some who I knew were a little ahead of me. Approaching the two-mile mark, I passed some people who were considerably ahead of me this season. At this point I went past Andrew and he went with me. After that I began passing people I never even fathomed beating. I crested a hill and realized I was in like 20th place. I brought it home, but my kick could have been a lot better, maybe I would have finished in the 16:00-16:03 range had it been strong. Either way I'm not complaining about my race: though I finished 12th in the Washington 3A state race, I was 21st out of both states, 12th out of all Washington runners, and 5th out of 3A(Whoops I had entered it as 2A before). Andrew came in about 3 seconds behind me and was the 1st 2A competitor after getting 4th during the state meet (Barely outleaning 5th). Both of us had great races and I'm very happy that it ended on this note. Now for my 2 week break and then track season.