Tori Gaitan is a rising junior with Great Oak High School in Temecula, California, and one of the top girls distance runners in the country. A year ago, she cemented herself as the Wolfpack's No. 1 runner and was a major contributor to the team's Division I championship in California and its eighth-place finish at NXN. Individually, she won the DI/D2 Team Sweepstakes race at Mt. SAC, finished seventh at Woodbridge, was seventh at Clovis, fourth at CIF Southern Section and sixth at CIF. Now there are new goals. Following a very successful track and field season where Gaitan set PRs in both the 1600m and 3200m, she's zeroing in on her best cross country campaign yet. Will Great Oak make a run at the national title? That will be decided soon enough, but in the meantime check out Gaitan's journey toward the 2018 season in this training blog with MileSplit.
Week 3 (August 13- August 19)
Monday, August 13: Morning -- 7 miles at 7:33 pace; Afternoon -- 7 miles at 7:12 pace
Most Monday's I generally feel good from the previous day off, so in the morning I went on a more recovery pace, and then I decided to go a little faster in the afternoon. I ran around a mile loop for most of both runs, and I felt good. Pretty simple day; just focusing on getting in those miles!
Tuesday, August 14: Morning -- 6 miles at 7:05 pace; Afternoon -- 4 mile tempo 5:53 pace
Today started out with an easy six miles. They were meant to be recovery, but I felt good and went on the faster end of my pace. The workout in the afternoon went well, too, but it was really humid! I started out faster than normal, and then the heat caught up with me by mile 3. Besides that, my average pace was solid, and it was a good workout!
Wednesday, August 15: 6 miles at 7:37 pace
We only had afternoon practice today, so I got a chance just to let my body recover. We did a three mile loop for our run with a few hills, but plenty of downhill! Overall, a really easy day.
Thursday, August 16: 4 miles at 7:05 pace, 40 minutes on the ElliptiGo
In the morning I had a little soreness in my foot, but breathing wise I felt great! For my afternoon run, we decided to get off my foot for a couple of days and do other workouts. The forty minutes went by pretty fast, and it was actually a lot harder than I anticipated.
Friday, August 17: ElliptiGo for 40 minutes, extra core
While I am away from running, I really try to focus on other ways to improve! Today I did tons of core, focusing on building strength in different areas. Also, I jumped on the ElliptiGo for another forty minutes.
Saturday, August 18: 20 minute swim and 15 minute aqua jog, extra core
Today my foot feels pretty good. Just to be safe again, I'm going to take one more training day off. In the meantime, I went into the pool to get a solid workout in. This was nice because, I got a good workout without the pounding from running. I finished with about 20 minutes of core. It was a good workout, but I really missed the long run today!
Sunday, August 19: Day off!
My normal day off is today! I did a little core, but I'm ready to get back into running.
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Total mileage: 34
Low mileage this week, but better safe than sorry. A little frustrating, but you can't avoid pain with this sport. Planning on getting right back into it on Monday!
