So here is really a tale of two cross-countries; the yankee sort and the Manchester sort. Having not long arrived home after a busy season in ATL, I got dragged out of my nice warm bed (too much of that going on recently) to go leg it round some muddy field just beside the motorway in Manc-land. It was cold, it was rainy, it was grey. Lovely stuff. Not quite what I've acclimatised to - you can see the difference between the conditions in the photographs. One is lovely and sunny, pleasantly warm, not an inch of mud in sight.

The other is some sort of Northern wasteland suffering from classically northern winter weather. Both have their merits, and honestly I prefer British XC, but I can't pretend that as I shivered on the soggy starting line I wasn't just a little nostalgic for my American stomping grounds.

But yeah, XC at home is much more fun, and much more hardcore than the sort across the pond, and I think the longer distance and emphasis more on being fit than on being speedy suits me more. So I won the Manchester League! That was unexpected! Taking the front halfway round the last lap came as a total surprise to me, as did the girl behind's reluctance to hurtle past me in the finishing section, but there we go. Who'd have thought I'd ever do that?

I confess, I've gone weak and wussy out there in Donald Trump land. I thought the course was pretty muddy and quite difficult to run properly on. My mother has reliably informed me that I am an American wet lettuce, and the terrain was wholly run-able. Having seen Arrowe Park after the race last weekend, I'm starting to think she might have a point....

Even so, here I am post-race. Looks pretty muddy to me. 

So, our season. A bit of a mixed bag, to be honest. The guy's team had a pretty good one I think. They finished well at Conference, and Dax placed high enough to come to Nationals with us! He ran really well at Nats as well, finishing inside the top 100, which is really great for a fresher. His family are the sweetest as well, they've come to nearly all our races and bring us nice treats for afterwards (so obviously they're very popular). 

On the girl's side we didn't win a single race as a team- even ones we did win last year when (on paper at least) we had a weaker team. 

This is us, second at UNG....won that last year. I think it's fair to say that some of us were lacking in team unity and combined work ethic.

I had a pretty good season. I won some stuff, I set some course records. I broke the school record twice. I think the highlight of the season was running 17.05 at Sand Shark, which took 9 seconds off the previous course record there. That's quite good, because the record had been set by Hannah Segrave last year, who came third at the European U23s this summer in the 800. It was dead annoying though, because I finished over a minute ahead of the next girl, and I totally would have run under 17 if there had been any sort of person to chase or to try and escape from, or anything! Also very annoying because I'd been so close to breaking 17 a few weeks before when I did 17.07 at Royals. It's a bit ungrateful to be mad about winning, but I was cross.

We ran a 6k this year, that was an exciting adventure. Most of the NCAA schools do 6ks because that's their championship distance (bit random). 6k is a rotten distance. It's fast like a 5k, but you have to go further. Coach absolutely terrified me beforehand talking about how one time he'd been at the course we were going to and there had been deer all over the starting field as the race went off. Scary stuff, having to charge down the deer. There weren't any that day, but we did run into a herd of them one time when we were out doing our long run. There are a load of trails behind the main path at the river and we toddled off along one, turned the corner and crashed into these animals. Very worrying indeed when you're not expecting them to be there and then they are there, bouncing all over the path and flashing their antlers (I survived).

Last year's XC season seemed to fly by, I guess because it was all new. This year's seemed to drag on a bit, probably because I knew exactly what was coming.

 A lot of the courses were the same as last year's schedule, but of course not all the same people enter and hopefully some of the runners are in better shape than last year, so the races are never the same. Like this one, a snazzy picture of me looking absolutely exhausted. I was. This was the 17.07 race, a solid 14 seconds off my 5k PB, so I think I was allowed to look a bit knackered. This is Royals, in North Carolina, which last year I won but in a much slower time. This year, the other girl here got just a second ahead of me- I just could not move any faster at the finish.

Conference was not in the same place as last year, which was quite upsetting. It was in fact in the same place as our very first race last year, which is not a brilliant course. Here are me and Maddie making a spirited attempt to break into Milligan's social media. People might remember from last year; Milligan are our sworn rivals. They're lovely girls, but we must try and beat them at all times. Last year we edged them at Conference by two points. This year they battered us (team work ethic disaster), but I won it and Maddie had a fantastic run for third, so that was good. The rest of the first seven, who get 'All-Conference' prizes were Milligan's counting team, so obviously we didn't stand a chance in the points.

Luckily, even in second we got a bid to go to Nationals, ranked 16th in the nation. Last year we went in ranked 10th, our place having moved up and up all season. This year we'd gone steadily down the rankings, but at least we were getting to go. And go all the way to the other side of the country! Vancouver, Washington State! Very exciting.

It's a bit sad, but for me one of the coolest bits of the whole trip was stopping over in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was AMAZING. The city huddles against the back of the Rocky Mountains, which are just these enormous, harsh, spiky things that go on for ever ever, like it's trying to hide from the massive lake but can't run back any further. It doesn't look like it ought to be there- the whole thing looks like something from a SciFi film. Awesome. And then there are mountains coming out of the lake, and the whole thing is just crazy. How did people survive trying to cross that landscape without aeroplanes or cars or anything?

We got to Portland, which is basically the same place as Vancouver, just across the state line, and we did some exploring. We'd all chopped our hair off, possibly in honour of the occasion, or possibly just because, so we are now the SCAD ATL boy's XC team, and here we are at Nike World HQ! It is such a beautiful track.

We had a little run around it, and I did some balancing. Greta, who ran with us last year is now at uni in Oregon, so she came to visit. The US is so enormous it has multiple time zones, so we were all very confused as to why we were feeling very tired at 7pm, but really it was more like 9 or 10 for us.

Very exciting news though. I got voted the Southern runner of the year for the NAIA, and got a massive piece of glass for it. The people in charge of the event at Nats had organised a massive dinner the night before, so they called you up to get these things in front of nearly everyone who would be running the next day...no pressure at all!

So here's me doing something attractive with my face not long after the start of the race. The girl directly beside me went on to win it. I had a bit of a shocker. Not long after this photo was taken I think I must have twisted my ankle and spent the rest of the race limping with a stabbing pain in my calf. Very, very upsetting. On the plus side though, Maddie ran a brilliant race to finish within a few seconds of being All-American, and somehow the team pulled through to 8th, which was something of a nice ending to a disappointing season. 

Notes from Katie Clarke!

Kalie and Katie literally flying at the last race

Girlsssss 💚

Having arrived in America over 3 weeks ago, we have finally started classes this week. Due to the threat of hurricane Irma, lessons had been delayed by a week and all the students from the Savannah campus had been moved to stay with us for a few days. The delay wasn't ideal as we now have to catch up for lost time on Fridays which were meant to be our free day.....a shame as I was quite excited about having a day with no classes! It did however mean that I could focus on training before the first two of our races. The first race was a 4k cross country in Alabama and I definately felt the pressure, I knew I wasn't the strongest runner in the team but one of the main diferences in running out here for SCAD compared to running in England is that the focus is very much on the team's overall positioning so I knew my finishing place would count! It was also super weird not having my family here to support me. I'm usually awful at coping with nerves and often spend the countdown to a race having pep talks from my mum and rushing around frantically trying to keep calm but in this case I spent it sitting on the mini bus listening to music and trying not to cry!! Luckily the race went really well and to my surprise I managed to finish 2nd for the girls team and 18th overall. To top it all I also won my first t-shirt as the top 20 finishers received a t-shirt with the name of the race on it!
Initially I found the training very demanding, especially the regular long runs, as this was very different to the type of training I was used to...faster and shorter sessions with longer runs between 5-7 miles no more than three times a week. On the second week after the race I clocked up 45 miles which was the most I had run in a single week of training...ever! It is so helpful having Josh, the trainer, in the gym as I find my calf muscles are constantly tight after the races and high intensity sessions.

ATL from the top floor of school

Katie and Katie in school

I ran my second race last weekend, a 5k, so my first official American cross country! I had no idea what time to expect as the course was reasonably flat however it also contained some tricky steep hills and forest tracks. To my delight I finished in 4th place behind my team mates Emily in 1st position and Kalie who came in 3rd. The team lost out narrowly on 1st place by just 1 point! The race took place at 8:15am so a 5am very early start (not my ideal!)
Since being in Atlanta I have made a real effort to get to know the city and have already been to the Aquarium (an incredible experience), been to see my first ever baseball game (the Atlanta Braves being the local team), spent lots of time shopping and last weekend went to the Midtown music festival which took place in the park we train in (Piedmont Park). We have also had several gatherings as a running group, (including a pasta party!) all of which have been so much fun.

Baseball!

ATL aquarium 🐟🐠🐙🦀

Music Midtown festival (just even more time spent in Piedmont Park...)

Hurricane Season

So here I am, back in ATL. I guess this is kind of going to be more a series of reviews than any particular diary of my life back here so far, because we've not been doing all that much.

First of all, this photo. Best running photo of me ever, I actually look like I might be going fast (amazing). Some clever soul with a camera managed to snap this at the exact moment I looked good. Another 0.5 of a second and it would have been back to naff form.... Also, how cute are my shorts? Finally managed to get myself a matching Nike shorts and crop top set and it's beautiful.

This was a fun, fun race. Viking Mile Relays, organised by dad's MRT (yay). I wasn't as fast as I might have liked to be, but I ran my leg pretty much by myself, which wouldn't have helped. It was a really cool event though; we set an unofficial (rats) national record for the mixed 4x1mile relay, which is absolutely mega. On to next year, where hopefully we can be quicker again.

Second of all; I got a new watch! Polar M340 in bright orange (you can see it on my wrist in the piccy). What a good colour, everyone knows orange makes you go faster. It's an absolutely brilliant bit of kit; it beeps both miles and kilometres, which is very helpful because mum does all her group's training in km and I used to have no idea what she meant when she gave me paces because mine is all in miles, it gives me little messages of encouragement! After I do my run it gives me little motivational messages about how I was doing steady state or tempo training and how it's improving my cardiovascular fitness and endurance and so on; very cute. After my race yesterday it told me I'd been doing sprint training! It got kinda mad at me when I was on the airplane, it kept telling me I'd been sat down for too long. Sorry watch, long flight, I can't help that!

Third thing; Hokas! I was curious about these last year, but I'd never seen them at home so I decided against. This season I've got a pair, and they're amazing. They have massive soles, which is wonderful because I think they make me about two inches taller- always a good thing, and despite that they aren't really heavy. I wouldn't wear them to do a session, but sometimes I get sore feet if I'm going for a long run or am on my feet for a long time in a day, and they really help with that. The only thing I would say is that the grips do seem to wear down quite fast. They also make sandals, which Kalie and Olivia have gone and bought... I'm going to have to take a photo of those, they are the ugliest shoes I've ever seen! Massive, thick-soled sandals. Very bizarre. They look a bit like elderly grandparents taking their orthopaedic shoes on holiday to Spain or something. No doubt dad would think they were very cool.

Hurricane Irma; what a nuisance. We've been back here for nearly three weeks now and school still hasn't started because of the stupid hurricane. They had to evacuate the Savannah SCAD campus and bring the people to ours because Savannah was due to get hit, so our classes all got pushed back a week.... And then we had full panic, the whole State of Georgia got declared to be a state of emergency, and on the actual day the storm was meant to hit Atlanta, we got locked in our dorms! Honestly I was worried, mostly because of the talk of disaster and what to do if there was a tornado outside, but in the end it rained all day and that was about it, hurricane over. Katie Clarke said she was pretty sure she'd seen worse weather back in the UK. Having to be inside all day was a bit of a pain, but at least with classes not starting yet, we haven't had to do training at 6am. That starts tomorrow, lucky us.

So, races! We've had two now since we got back. Our first was only a few days after flying in and was in Oxford! (Alabama, not too far from us actually). It was a pretty tough standard race, which I think threw us a little, plus it was only a 4k but the course was pretty hard work. They had this strange sort of grass that was full of moss and was kind of like running on sand; it just absorbed all the energy from each step. The grass was also pretty long in places and hid all these potholes. Here is not a great picture of me running, but much better than the one that is on the boy's race report on the website. It was so hot, I'm reflecting the flash with how sweaty I was! Also better than the massively unattractive photo of me at Royals last year they used for our report. I need to get a censorship arrangement for these pictures, I really do.  I had an alright race, I got carried away in the first mile and ended up coming second to the new star of Georgia Tech's squad. The team didn't have that great a showing, but we will get back into it.

This weekend was the big blue bird race! UNG was our second race last year as well, but they'd changed the course slightly (put some hills in it!) so I wasn't too sure what to expect. UNG's top girl, Brittany, hadn't been too far behind me at the first race, so it was reasonable to presume she might want to try and win it. 

Here's me at the finish, I like this one because even though though Brittany was only about 15s behind, you can't see her at all. I was kinda upset because last year they had a quad bike to show the way on the first lap, and the big blue bird rode on the back of it the whole way round. This time there was just a UNG girl shouting splits at their runners- really not as exciting. Good news though, I smashed my course record from last year; 17.59 down to 17.40, so I have to come back next year and do 17.20. We had a slightly disappointing run as a team, we came second to UNG...again. One single point in it, but it's still very annoying, we ought to be able to beat them. On the plus side, our guys' team had an amazing day. Dax, one of the new guys won the race outright, in his first ever 8k, and they also came second overall! 

Everything kicks off tomorrow here. Classes and 6am training (hurray). This week is going to be a tough one before our next race the weekend after next, which I'm really excited for because we're going back to Charlotte, which was probably my best race of the season last year. 

Sweet Home Alabama

 

Here I am, in Alabama, with my beautiful Madeline, in our vests that we pinched from Point University. Back at the start of the year, the Coach at Point ordered all their kit, but instead of putting our Conference logo on the back (as you have to) he put a big P for Point, so he couldn't use any of them. We've been trying to get him to give us some all year, at now we finally got them. 

Maddie and I were the only two to get to Nationals, and I was very grateful she came because it wouldn't have been that much fun with just me and Coach and Coach's wife. Her fam came along to watch as well. I love her mum very much, and she has a baby brother about the same age as Obi, who was outrageously cute. 

 

Gulf Shores, Alabama is apparently very typical of American tourist locations. It is a strange town, with one road in, a load of low shack-like buildings on the road leading to the beach-front, which is populated with massive high-rise hotel buildings. Everything is on stilts, because the Gulf of Mexico gets hurricanes. America does tat shops properly. There were at least three of them, including this magnificent example, where you have to enter by walking through the shark's mouth. They all flog pretty similar beach tat to the stuff you get at home, except they also sell hermit crabs with painted shells. They have loads of the little things crawling around in the shop. Poor little souls, it must be a miserable life. 

Having left America, I feel very let down at having not seen any alligators the entire time I was there. Maddie saw one, part-way through her marathon, but all I have seen, despite much searching, was been warning signs. How massively disappointing. 

Gulf Shores is a very hot place, and for some reason the NAIA seem to want to have the championships in the middle of the day, so it was massively hot and not very nice. I had to run back to back 5ks on the Friday and Saturday, which was fairly terrible, and I didn't do very well, but it was a good experience, and all a learning process for next time. Next year I am not touching the 5k...

 

For doing a very good job at the organising stuff they have been awarded the job for the next two years...hurray... Indoor Nationals is going to Kansas, which will be cool. Maybe in my final year we might get to go on an adventure elsewhere for Outdoors, hopefully. But the best part about Gulf Shores is definitely the beach. Beach! So pretty. It was an endless strip of white sand, all warm and lovely. Maddie's family had brought a blow up ring thing so we nearly drowned trying to go over waves on that, and had  great time dodging seaweed and dead fish. They had pelicans, just flying around overhead like seagulls, and our apartment was right on the beach (that picture was taken from our balcony), so all the time we could hear the ocean hissing around. 

 

After Nationals, I was terribly busy. Finals for this, that and the other, including this drawing. It took absolutely forever (this isn't it quite finished), and then my professor didn't even really like it! Terrible man, I thought it was quite good. Finals week was mental, I hardly had time to breathe or sleep, but then it was over and it was time to go home. Leaving was quite emotional, I think if I wasn't going back next year I would be a miserable soul now. But I am! So that's alright. 

Flights across the Atlantic are terribly long and so, so boring, but at least I did get home fine, and just in time to enjoy the beautiful British summer. Honest to God, I'm not used to this weather. Why is it so windy? I'm living in a polar neck, but I just know that by the time I'm going back to Atlanta I'll have just about adjusted to the British weather, and then I'll have to re-acclimatise to the American stickiness. There is no winning.

Hayfever

 

Here is some funny news; I am officially an elite 2000m runner! Not a 2000 steeplechase or anything that sensible, just a flat 2k, that well-known, commonly raced distance. Somehow Coach got me into this 'elite' event, which apparently had qualifying standards of 9.35 for the 3000, or something like that. Basically quite a lot faster than I am. I was kinda nervous about it, especially after I got there and found he'd given me a 6.12 seed time. Two 3.06 kilometres seems pretty quick, right? There was eight of us in the race, all from Atlanta Track Club except me. Above is a nice picture of me really not matching, and looking madly nervous on the start line. We ran, I came third (pretty damn surprised) in 6.22, which still seems pretty fast. After that Foon and I did a 200s workout, which was painful, but I felt like such a serious running person doing a session after a race. 

This is a really bad photograph, I'm sorry. It's hard to get a proper one because it's glass. It says "2016-17 SCAD Atlanta Athlete of the Year - Emily Kearney". Pretty cool. We had an awards ceremony for all the sports people, so all the Coaches got up to talk about how their team is definitely the best team in the school (we had the most to say, because we're really cool), and then I got athlete of the year! It was very embarrassing though, because Coach had told us to dress nicely, so I was in a pair of heels and I fell over going down the stairs to pick up the trophy and swore in front of most of the senior faculty. #smooth

In other news, Foon is graduating, which I am very upset about, and he is going on an enormous world tour next year (he wants to go to the South Pole!) so he won't be here, which is even more upsetting! But he gave us all some beautiful photographs that he had taken, including this mega mega cute one from when Ma and Pa came over here back in November. I cunningly chose to stand on tip-toe so I look tall. I showed this to one of my mates and he genuinely thought mum was my sister, so with a bit of luck I'll get those genes....

I found a bookshop! This is actually a story of great success, because I sallied forth to purchase a book, and wandered down to Georgia Tech (I might have said this before, but GT is the Georgia counterpart to MIT, but they miss the 'Institute' bit because that would spell 'GIT'). This was an absolutely brilliant idea, because I got a book priced at $9.99 and somehow paid $8.70 for it even after tax. The guy behind the counter must have thought I was a GIT person. We had a little flash flood on the way home, and I got more soaked than I had ever been before ever, but it was definitely worth it. 

And I have hayfever. So upset. I dunno what it is, some nefarious species of tree or something, but I can't go outside without sneezing all over the place. This morning I sneezed coffee out my nose in a particularly tragic hayfever attack. I would love to say at least there was no one there to witness it, but alas this was not the case. I may never live it down.

Life goes on

 

I feel like not much has been happening recently, although that's probably a good sign, if this is becoming my normal life.We've had some nice weather (like the day in the photograph) and we've had some disgusting weather (the humidity is back with a vengeance).  After our last race, Foon, Max and I went up to the hills for some running and annoying the fishers and sunbathing, pizza and general good craic. It was quite upsetting actually, because the last time we were there, there was literally no-one else. Once we got off the road, we didn't see another person for hours. This time, half of Georgia seemed to have had the same idea as us, and they were all up on the trails driving around or camping or whatever. There was one particular lorry-load of chubby women who drove past us three times during our run! We went back into Helen and ate pizza, and then went and stood in the lake, just to upset the anglers who were failing to catch any fish. There was a little sign saying 'no swimming', but we were actually icing our legs.

 

This is Valhalla. No pets allowed in Valhalla, there's a sign that says so on the gate. You know how all the American colleges have mascots (usually animals); so we're the Bees, our bitter rivals Milligan are the Buffaloes- Berry College, where we were running, are the Vikings, so their stadium is honestly called Valhalla. Berry is outside a place called Rome, which is about an hour's drive from a place called Athens (top marks for originality there America), and it is right in the middle of the rural bits of Georgia. Like Gone with the Wind, all rolling grass fields, dark pine trees and bright red soil. In the very background you can just about see the American equivalent of a stately home- a big white house with pillars and verandas and beautiful gardens. It was a nice track, although apparently it's always windy there, kind of like at Wavertree. I got to do my first track 5k, lucky duck that I am. It wasn't very great. 5k is not a long way, but it feels sooooooo much further when you're just going around in circles. I did 17.24, which at least was a qualifier for nationals, but pretty disappointing either way. 

 

Last weekend was Easter of course, and me, Maddie, Olivia and Jaylon went to watch his beautiful girlfriend and the rest of the SCAD golf squad play. Golf is a bit boring, but golf carts are a lot of fun. The Americans don't really seem to do Easter eggs in the same way as us, instead they get little plastic eggs and fill them with sweets. They have creme eggs, but they're not the same and they're not nice. We took lots of plastic eggs and hid them in the golf carts for the golfists to find. We're pretty sure we found a cabin in the woods that someone died in, I got a spider on me, Olivia got a tick, and we all got scratched by thorns. There were lots of plants on the golf course, and we found strawberries and raspberries and spring onions, which for some reason the golf girls were very impressed with. Is knowing what a spring onion looks like really that impressive? This golf course had some interesting features that I never thought anyone who played golf would have dreamed up. The bridge we are posing on goes to a little island, from which one must shoot the balls across the lake and hope they don't end up in the water. Jaylon is a really terrible driver, so Olivia and I had to strap ourselves on to the back of the cart like some luggage, and she still managed to fall off. Golf is a terrible sport, because you have to stay very quiet while they are aiming and whatever. We are not very good at being quiet, but at least we didn't get kicked out. Olivia woke up a goose, and we had to run away quickly because it got very angry. 

 

And here is the entrance to Jurassic Park. Back in Montreat, North Carolina for conference on the track. We were actually pretty high up in the hills, and it was raining a lot on Friday, so all the clouds were really low, and billowing through the valleys between peaks. It rained A LOT. We all got pretty soggy. Some of the morons forgot to bring extra clothes, so then they froze. The rain meant that events got delayed by an hour on the track, so we were there very late waiting for the 10k. I don't know how Maddie does the 10k. I really couldn't cope. 25 laps, it would just seem to go on forever and ever and ever and ever. Yesterday was very, very hot and sticky, and I wouldn't have minded a bit of rain. I don't think any of us had a particularly good run, except maybe Adrian, who came third in the guy's 5k. I won my race, but I can't even count that as an achievement given than I was seeded 80 seconds ahead of the next girl. Once again, my time was disappointing. 

I qualified for Nationals in both the 5000 and the 1500, and I'm thinking the 1500 might be a better choice. We're going to southern Alabama, where the temperature is likely to get up to 36-37 degrees, and I do not want to do 12 laps twice in that. Plus, amusingly enough I'm actually ranked higher in the 1500...told you my 5k wasn't very good. And I think I could be faster over 1500 yet- I have only done two of them so far. Maddie has the half marathon to qualify for the nationals marathon next weekend, and hopefully I can go see her run. I really hope she does a good time, I don't want to be going to Alabama by myself!

Up and up and up

This picture has very little to do with anything else in this post, but it's funny. For my drawing final we had to create a collage including a self portrait and one of someone else, and then draw a picture of the collage. Don't ask me why, I don't come up with this stuff. The whole project was ugly as hell, but I drew a picture of myself which wholly embodied my attitude to the drawing. It's ugly, but at least it's amusing. Coloured pastel is not a media I want to ever have to use ever again.

In happier news, we had spring break, and my Michael came to see me!

 

Here is a picture mostly of his face, looking very over-excited about something. I don't think there's another person alive on whom a museum mostly devoted to monetary policy would have such an effect. What a strange boy. We got up to some fun stuff, and some running (he doesn't find that very much fun). He also got rather excited about being able to use Uber over here, apparently there are never any drivers at home. I don't really understand- surely it's all just taxis?

This place is a bit worrying; it's the Centre for Disease Control, which is just behind Emory University, where I was racing. This is one of only two places left on earth where they hold Smallpox. The other one is in Russia, which really doesn't leave me feeling very safe at all.

On the other hand, this place is amazing. Georgia Aquarium, in downtown Atlanta. If any of you people are ever in Georgia you really ought to go. They have Whale Sharks and these huge rays and a massive cinema-screen kind of sized glass wall that you can see them all swimming around behind. I really could have stayed there all day and watched them swimming around.

Here he is again. I had never realised quite how big all these fish were, or how graceful. I have A LOT of pictures from this fish window, but the rest of the world probably don't want to see endless fishy photographs, even if they are beautiful.

Running news though, and big news! We had races at Emory both this weekend and the last, and I ran two PBs in the 1500 and the 800 both weekends! And I have entered into the sub-2.20 800 club! Okay, so it's not that fast in the grand scheme of things, but I am famously disastrous at 800s and I honestly never, ever thought I'd be this quick. 4.34 and 2.17, and I'm happy, especially with the 800 time. I'm starting with 5000 on the track now, so if I keep working, when I get home in the summer hopefully I can get that 1500 down to under 4.30 and that would be really great! Next race in two weeks, and we must all pray for good weather, because apparently it's a fast track and I want a fast 5k time.