Oct 18, 2011

MileSplit XC Journals 2011

Meet Julie Macedo, from Wilmington DE. Julie has exploded this year with some impressive early season wins. She will be sending in a journal several times over the course of the 2011 season to update you on her running and the life of an elite HS runner. Enjoy!

Hello runners! I hope everybody is having fun with the XC season; it seems to be flying by!

I’ve had a lot of excitement in the past few weeks so I’ll start to fill you in where I left off last time…

On Thursday, October 6^th, I left for my official University of Florida visit. My flight was at 5:30pm so I had time to get a good interval workout in before the trip. My coach gave me a short ladder workout to do: 400-600-800-600-400 with 1:00 recoveries between intervals. I love running intervals on the track, especially ladders because I get to practice switching paces and switching it up keeps it from feeling monotonous. I felt super and was pleased to run even faster than the goal splits that Coach gave me. After my workout I went home to shower and pack, then I was off to Gainesville! (October 6^th was also my Mom’s birthday, so happy birthday again Mom!)

It was pretty late when I arrived at the Gainesville airport. The airport was so tiny, so I had no trouble spotting Coach Morgan. He dropped me off at the hotel and I hit the sack right away! The next morning, their team had a 6am workout and then he was going to pick me up at 9:30 for the tours and meetings. I’m a morning person, so I was naturally awake by 6:20. With the free time I had, I hit the hotel gym for some upper body lifting and core, then took advantage of the continental breakfast. At 9:30, I went down to the hotel lobby to meet up with Coach Morgan and the other recruits: Vanessa Valentine and Elliot Clemente. Vanessa and Elliot were both super cool and it was really fun to have my visit with them. We met with the Academic counselor and then the nutritionist, and Coach Morgan took us on a walking tour of campus. At 3:00pm, Vanessa, Elliot, and I joined the team for practice (the team’s 2^nd practice of the day). We ran an easy 40 minutes around campus, which is GORGEOUS! We got back to the track, did some core work, got some Gatorade (which is obviously in abundance at UF!), and went back to the hotel to get cleaned up for the team cookout. The cookout was a lot of fun because I got to meet all the girls and guys on the team. They’re an awesome group of diverse people who were super nice and easy to talk to. Afterwards, we got some frozen yogurt, checked out the Freshman dorm, and then went back to the hotel. That Saturday morning, we went to a beautiful state park for the team’s long run. I just tagged along for 30 minutes because Coach wanted me to do a tempo when I got home. After the run, we went out to brunch with Coach Morgan and a few girls and guys from the team. I spent the rest of the day traveling back to Philadelphia, where my mom picked me up from the airport around 8:00pm. I still wanted to do my tempo run, so I got ready as soon as I got home and went out for a 5 mile tempo. My mom strapped on a headlamp (smh) and came along on her bike. Surprisingly, after sitting on an airplane for a lot of the day and it now being almost 9:00pm, I felt really good on my run and averaged 5:55ish for my 5 mile tempo.

Sunday is usually my off day from running, so I went the Y and swam. School and practices went really well last week. Monday we ran a little longer than usual and explored some. Tuesday we did 10x400 with 1:00 recoveries. It was probably the hardest workout we’ve done so far, but I felt strong and was really happy with my splits. That night, Sports Illustrated contacted my mom for a picture of me that they could use in their “Faces in the Crowd” section of their weekly publication (check out p. 24 of your October 17 edition of Sports Illustrated!) Wednesday our JV teams won our dual meet (good job girls and guys!) and varsity did a recovery run. And Thursday was just an easy pre-meet run.

Friday was an awesome day because it was our school spirit day, which means it’s a half-day and all we do is PEP RALLY-no classes! YAYYYY SENIORS 2012!!! Friday was also the day of the Joe O’Neill Invitational.

Me and Emily (one of my Charter friends) at our Pep Rally! Yayyy Seniors 2012!

This is always a really exciting meet because it’s a fast course and it’s the first time that we run against Tatnall. Everyone was talking about the dual between Haley Pierce and me and it attracted many more spectators than usual. I really didn’t feel too much pressure though, I knew it would be a close race and we would both run fast. During warm-up, I probably had 10-15 strangers shout out to me “good luck!”, “I’m rootin’ for you!”, or “I think you got this one!” I was really feeling the support. I also had my mom, dad, uncle, poppop, three neighbors, my coaches, and all of my teammates there to support me and cheer as obnoxiously as possible! Before the race, I wrote on my hand: Be Brave. Be Strong. Be Fierce. I used the mantra to motivate myself throughout the race.

Ready

Before the mile with Reagan, Haley and Rebecca of Tatnall

After a fairly conservative 1^st mile, I picked up the pace to see who would come with me. No one did, so I just kept pushing the pace and increasing the gap. For the last half mile, I was really working hard. For the final 200 meters the clock is visible and the crowd is loud; it’s perfect for sprinting into a fast time. I saw the clock close to my P.R. and ran as fast as I could to get it. It ended up being 2 seconds off of my P.R. but I wasn’t disappointed at all because I had accomplished what I went out there to do. I was brave, strong, and fierce, ran under 17 minutes again, and won by 42 seconds.

After receiving many hugs and congrats, Coach Walker gave me a trophy that the coach from Delcastle (another DE team) had made especially for me. It says “Never Look Back.” And he told me “you don’t have to look back for anybody anymore.” This immediately brought tears to my eyes. It is by far my favorite trophy; it means so much to me.

After the meet, we had a team dinner at my teammates Zach and Julie Binder’s house. I love the post-race parties because we can all just relax, celebrate, and eat good food! Thank you to the Binders for hosting an awesome party!

Today (Sunday) was my off day so I swam at the Y. It was so nice to get congratulations from all the people who had read the Sports section of their newspapers yesterday 

That’s pretty much all for now. I hope everyone continues to enjoy the XC season!

*Julie*