WEEK FIVE

Monday @ Lakewood vs. Lake Zurich, Vernon Hills and Wauconda:
We went into this race with the right attitude; in the past, we feared the former and longer Wauconda course, but it seems that most of you have embraced this new course.  The challenge for today was to run negative splits.  Unfortunately, while the mentality was there, no one stepped up to the challenge.  We MUST work on the middle mile in order to make our season goals.  On a positive note, I did see better racing than Saturday, and I was glad to see a better team-effort.  The highlights of this meet came in several races: Violette's triumphant return to her real-racing-self (great job adjusting your mindset for this race!), which earned her a lifetime PR of 22:50; Lainey's impressive race which resulted in a 14-second drop to set a new lifetime PR of 23:53 (first time under 24!!); Sam's 7-second drop since the Wauconda Invite to earn her a new lifetime PR of 28:21; Desiree's 5-second drop (from Warren--which is really a bigger drop than it seems on paper) to earn a new lifetime PR of 30:36; and most importantly, Asante's first every 3-mile race!  She has been steadily improving throughout the weeks, and she was ready to take on a whole race today.  Anyone who saw her finish knows that she understands what it means to be a runner.  :)  Let's keep moving in a positive direction this week with our workouts, ladies!

Thursday & Saturday Workouts: 
After witnessing the mental-toughness and team-effort of these two workouts, I simply cannot wait to see you all race again.  Not only did you embrace the negative-splits of Thursday, but you also took on the speed of Saturday with gusto!  I am STILL smiling ear-to-ear.  Based on the consistency of your times, I KNOW we are ready for some big PRs in the coming days and weeks.  If you take nothing else away from this week, please remember that YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE!