MileStat.com is bringing back a popular feature from several years ago with weekly journal blogs from some of the state's top athletes. Hopefully, these journals will allow site visitors to get to know better some of the Virginia's best runners in what's going on with their running and life in general as they share a little bit about both. The last season that we posted athlete journals, the participating runners definitely grew a greater fan base and a few more cheers at meets from the site followers of their weekly blogs.
One of our first athletes participating in a weekly journal for MileStat.com is Monacan junior Kaila Blackburn. Blackburn is one of the top individual runners in one of the state's most competitive districts for girls' distance running in the Dominion District which features the Midlothian girls, Cosby's Megan Moye, and Clover Hill's Abby Badura. Last year, Blackburn earned her first All-State honors with an 11:08 3200 meter personal best performance at the Group AAA State Indoor Championships. She finished her outdoor season winning the MileStat.com Elite Track Gala's 5000 meter race in a 48 second PR of 18:08. This past Saturday in extremely humid and hot conditions in one of the last races of the day at Maymont Festival, Blackburn won the bronze girls division by 90 seconds with a 19:35 victory.
Kaila Blackburn Journal Entry #1 - 9/28/2010
Hey Guys!
I'm Kaila Blackburn and I'm a junior at Monacan High School! I've been running seriously for like three years but I have always played a ton of sports. My gym teacher told me in sixth grade to tryout for the XC team because I won the pacer, so in seventh grade I did! One of my good friends and teammates in multiple sports and now running cross country at Monacan made me run with her and I ended up loving it! In eighth grade, I gave up softball, basketball and swimming and now I just focus on running and diving.(:
Anyways, this summer was so much fun and great running-wise until I got a stupid stress fracture! Less than a month ago I got released to run, probably a good thing; my mom was going crazy! Last week's training was good! Monday we did a hill workout. JOY?! It's what we call the “Tuzzo” hill. It is about 1/3 of mile in length and starts off really steep and then gets gradual. We got into teams and I was with Tom and John. We did this thing where we all switch who goes first and they get about a 3-6 second head start and we have to chase them! It makes it really fun and gets our competitiveness going! We did a total of 6, with a super slow walk and jog back! I'm not sure with the pace, but it was a really hard effort! My arms even ached afterwards! At the bottom of the hill, there was a bunch of stuff that said “FREE” on it and so we tried to run the ½ mile back with some of the stuff. Needless to say its really hard to run back with HUGE stuffed animals!
On Tuesday, we did a regular 4 mile run at about 7:30 mile pace, but I also went to the gym and aqua jogged for 25-30 minutes and did some machines as well!
Wednesday was a dual meet against Bird and Clover Hill! Dual meets are always really fun and team oriented! I know Monacan hasn’t had the best team in a while, but this year both the girls and boys' teams are looking amazing! So after a long warmup, the race began. It was really hot outside, and the course is hilly but its also fast and shaded so it wasn’t bad! Everybody ended up doing really great! For the girls, I came in first with a 19:30, while my teammates Andrea Bellamy and Samantha Stith finished top 10 with all of our other girls running PR’s or close to them! After a short cool down and the boys' race, we all went to Jersey Mike's to eat. We just hung out and had some funny times.
Wednesdays are always my busiest days. I got home around 6 and worked on homework for a while. I usually baby-sit during this time and do homework later but I wanted my sleep this week and let my best friend do it! Around 7:30 I went to Kyle and Ryan’s house for Young Life! It’s a really fun and new Christian group in our school, but we're all really excited about it and its welcome to anybody!
Thursday I took easy, especially because we were racing on Saturday. However, practice got cancelled because it was so hot! I did an easy four miler though with one of the guys; I have never sweated so much on a four mile run! Later I went to the gym and did 25-30 minutes of cardio. Afterwards, some of my friends and I went to Chick-fil-a! I'm addicted to their milkshakes!
Since it was so hot again Friday; practice was again cancelled, so I just ran a super easy 30 minutes. I think. I lost my watch, so I just guesstimate! And of course, on one of the easiest runs of my life, I fall. I scraped my knees and elbow and hip. This happens a lot; all I can do is laugh at myself! Okay, so I know I'm probably gonna sound like a dork, but I actually didn’t do anything Friday night besides just chill, hang out, and eat. And get pumped for Maymont!
Saturday I just kind of...well did nothing! We left my house about 12:20 PM and got to Maymont around 12:45 PM. I just talked to my teammates and my coaches! Around 1:20 PM, things started to become serious! As a team, we did a short five minute course preview so I did another 10 minute warmup and of course, I got lost and started freaking out. Once I found my way back and got my spikes and jersey on, it was off the the start line! After a hilarious and great team prayer and a few strides, we were off!
The race didn’t go exactly how I wanted it to, but my coaches talked to me and made me feel better! I think my splits got progressively slower, which really isn’t a good thing, but I think it was 6:00 for the first mile, 12:30 for two miles and then finished in 19:35. That hill demoralized me! I actually won the varsity bronze division race by about 90 seconds with a time of 19:35 but my goal was to break 19. With the heat and no competition though, I guess I'm content. Okay, now for some good news?! Monacan girls finished third! Way to go ladies!
After cheering on our boys who also finished very stong, Andrea, Josh McNamara and I went on a cool down! After about five minutes into the cool down, we saw a sketch looking cemetery and wanted to run in it. Trying to get in it, we saw these two ladies who scared me so much; but they told us how to get in! After a few more minutes, Andrea and Josh’s teammates turned around but Josh and I got to the cemetery, ran there for like 30 seconds and I was scared so we turned around! Thanks to him though we didn’t get lost on the way back and even found a short cut!
On Sunday, I did an easy run with my dad. He was on his bike with his dorky little helmet and reflective vest. Love ya Dad! But it was really fun and we ended up seeing a lot of deer and also got caught in the rain and got lost! It was a really fun run and I just ran by feel. I think I ended way faster than I started, out of feeling good and because of the torrential downpour! Thankfully though, this lady saw us and asked if we would you like a ride back. I felt bad but said yes because it was a few miles away! (Haha). My dad had to bike! So for the week, it was good!
Oh! I get my license on Tuesday! I'm so excited!! I'm not sure how to end this, but thanks for reading my first journal entry on MileStat.com and I will post a new entry next week!