It always amazes me what a great place Stanford is to run distance races.  The wind will be howling all day long but around 7:00 PM without fail it calms down and the temperature drops about 20 degrees.  The conditions were absolutely perfect to run a 10k.  The 10,000 at the Cardinal Invite was the race that I had been focusing on for the past few months.  The race turned out to be both a breakthrough and a little bit of a letdown at the same time – I ran a personal best of 31:17 but didn’t come close to my goal time of sub 31:00.  My Running USA teammate Sara Hall got me off to a great start running 73 – 74 second pace for the first 6 laps.  I felt really comfortable running behind Sara and took the lead after she stepped off the track.  I went through 5k in 15:30, a little off the 15:20 – 15:25 that I was looking for but still on a great pace.   Fortunately in the later stages of the race when I started to lose focus Kim Smith came up on my shoulder and I quickly snapped out of it and was able to strong over the last 800meters.  I am not usually a front-runner so it was a big boost to my confidence to win the race and run a PR after leading 19 of the 25 laps.  I know now that when I get into a race with a group of women going after that sub 31minute barrier I will be able to do it!

Following the Cardinal Invite in Palo Alto we returned home to Mammoth Lakes for a few final weeks of altitude training before the track season gets into full swing.  It is amazing as athletes the things that we can get ingrained in our minds.  I was making a purchase at our local tea shop, Edisto, here in Mammoth Lakes, and my total came to $14.59.  I was fully expecting to receive $5.01 in change from my $20 instead of $5.41.  I am so used to thinking in terms of seconds and minutes for training I was thinking my total was 14:59 and 5:01 was my change.  This incident reminded me that it’s time to let old barriers go and focus on new goals.  I had the goal of breaking 15 minutes for the 5k for so long that even though I’ve accomplished it, it’s still embedded in my mind.  It got me to thinking that focusing on these exact times (sub 31, sub 15) can be very limiting, whether you’re ready to sail right past a goal time or if you’re not quite there yet.   If I hadn’t been so focused on just breaking 15 minutes last summer in Brussels I may have run more aggressive and run even faster (I ran 14:55).  At Stanford if I hadn’t been focusing on my splits to break 31 minutes I would have been a lot more excited the second half of the race.  I was running the best 10k that I’ve ever run so mentally it should have been all positive thinking!  As I head into the track season I’m excited to switch gears and compete in the 1500m at the Adidas Track Classic and the Reebok Grand Prix meets.  Since I have no time barriers to try to break here, at least not yet, I am free to put my head down, run hard and compete.