Calling it a season

Hello everyone! It’s been a while since my last post, and since I realize that, to many of my readers, this is the highlight of the week (oh, happy delusions), I apologize for that. A lot has happened since my last post, so lets get started.

Lets start with running. When last we left our hero, he was struggling with why running had been progressively getting worse this spring. I had just finished the one of the worst races of my life in the Hillsdale Gina Relay 5k (the upside, and I mean only upside: I did break 16, which if you rewind to a year ago, would have been a PR, so what I guess this means that I’ve made a lot of progress to consider what I was doing a year ago as poor now). Frustrated, I turned to doctors to see if there was any explanation to the fatigue I was feeling. There was. Turns out, I have macrocytic anemia, meaning my red blood cells are large, but few in number. So what does this mean? Well, for one, it does NOT mean that I am iron deficient: iron deficiency anemia typically presents with microcytic (meaning smaller than normal) RBCs. Rather, it suggested that 1) I’m an alcoholic, 2) that I have a B12 deficiency, 3) that I have a folic acid deficiency, or 4) something else. I’m still trying to figure all of this out, so I’ll be sure to update everyone as to what is going on.

In light of this medical discovery, I’ve decided to call it a season. My logic: while I may be running to my potential from a year ago, further workouts/races will most likely lead to disappointment and frustration. The plan is to get everything figured out while building a base this summer for the fall season. I also am planning on improving my diet (including taking care of heartburn issues that have plagued me for years) and starting a consistent routine for doing core work.

So that’s about it as far as running. As far as my scientific career is concerned, I recently got some exciting news: I received a 2 year predoctoral fellowship to fund my research from the American Heart Association! To receive this award, I had to apply, which included writing a research plan about what I have been doing and what I plan to do with my research. It’s a competitive award, as 132 applications were received, and only 33 applicants received it. Most exciting about this was how high I scored: I received a 1.32, which puts me in the 4.4% rank.

            Well, I think that I’ve bored you enough with my life for now. Until next time, blaze on! 

Gina Relays

After nearly a month off from racing, I traveled to Hillsdale last Friday to race the 5k at the Gina relays. I had high hopes going into this race, as it was to be my first 5k on the track (I’m not going to count the one’s I ran while hurt and out-of-shape). Going into the race, I felt pretty good and ready to go. And the weather was nearly perfect (there was a slight breeze).

But things got ugly fast. There were somewhere near 25 people on the starting line, and it was clear that the start was going to be messy. I was only able to make it in to the third lane on the opening curve, and was pushed out a time or too. Coming around the first 200, I looked at the clock. This was where things started to go bad. Now, coming into the race, I intentionally did not where a watch so that I could just run by feel. But when I saw a 38 point for the first 200, I thought, “Oh, crap, Kyle, you better get moving.” I made a strong move into second place, and came through the 400 with the clock reading 72 or 73. Now, this is where I made my mistake. It turned out that the clock was about 5 seconds or so off, and I was actually running somewhere between 67-70 seconds (depending on the report), and was going out way too hard. My first mile ended up being around 4:43, then I steadily fell way off pace, finishing in 15:57. I was really feeling the latic acid in the middle of the race, and by the time the last mile came around, I knew that I wasn’t going to be even close to my goal (I really thought I was ready to break 15), and I gave up mentally. It was actually an accomplishment that I didn’t step off the track. This race is among the worst races of my life.

And we didn’t end up running the 4x8. During the women’s elite 1500, the lights in the stadium suddenly went out. It was still light enough for the men’s 1500 and women’s steeple to go off, but they then had to delay the meet before the men’s steeple, as it was just getting too dark to run. Just as we were about to call it a night, and leave, the lights in the stadium turn back on! Despite this, the meet was already delayed an hour, and we didn’t want to wait until 11 pm or so to run the relay, so we called it.

All in all, it wasn’t a good day (for Playmakers, it wasn’t really a good weekend. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think that anyone really felt good about their race this weekend). I’m not sure what’s going on right now, and why I am having such a hard time with workouts/races (okay, so this was my first legitimately bad race of the Spring, but I was hoping for much more coming into the season). I hope I can figure this out soon, cause if things don’t start going better, my race plan for June is going out the window (I’m not going to run in high level meets if I’m not going to be running at a high level).

...At least I'm still awesome. :)

In other news, congrats to my old teammates Bryan Felker (now of Team Nebraska) and Zane Grabau, who both finished top 10 in the Lincoln marathon last weekend. Bryan’s time was a 10 minute PR (I’m pretty sure Zane’s 2:39 is a PR, but I don’t know by how much. Solid run for him, regardless).

Well folks, that’s about it for this week. I'm not quite sure what's up for me next. U of M this weekend?