11/30 11am
Okay, I just finished 41st at USATF Club Nationals and am trying to figure out what I want to do next. I do most of my thinking about this while I'm running, so I'm trying to reproduce those thoughts here.
There seem to be two obvious ways to go:
1. I've been doing all this training thinking that I'd be racing at Winter Nationals, which will be an even more top-heavy race than Club Nationals was, so I can try and do my best Dan Feldman 2001 impersonation and finish higher than 41st at USATF Winter XC Nationals. (In 2001, Feldman was 6th at Regionals and 4th at Nationals.)
2. What's the best black and white definition of ability? Times, and I don't think that 8:20/14:37 accurately describes me, so I can jump on the track and try to drop some fast times.
I think that whichever route I choose, the best thing to do is max out the mileage through December and at least into January. I've been training at roughly the same volume since my sophomore year at MIT (90-100M) and working out basically alone since my junior year. It's becoming pretty clear that if I'm going to take the next step then I need to start getting my ass kicked in workouts, or at least have somebody next to me or on my heels. Also, an increase in mileage can only help. So along with maxing out mileage for a little while, I'm going to start going to the weekly BAA workouts.
11/30 11pm
Excerpts from an email conversation with John Brewer after he questioned my statement that "an increase in mileage can only help"...
"My reasoning is that there's no point in being conservative. I can keep doing what I'm doing and be one of the better regional runners and finish 41st at Nationals, or I can take another step and try to be better on a national level. I doubt that I'll have too much more time to devote to this (1-2 years probably) so why not see what all I can do? If I break, I break...
"Also, I'm a man and can handle it."