I come to race.

Gentlemen, please try always to remember: the track is a tempestuous mistress. Some might go further and dub her a saucy minx; she will pluck at your heart(ham)strings and drive you to despair, yet under the spell of a euphoric daze she will entice you with riches of gold and record-boards.
Such has been my plight over the past week. I had been easing myself back into more serious track workouts in an attempt to prepare for OUAs when my hamstring seemed to be acting up again. Frustrated, I began considering the prospect of canning the season in order to let the hamstrings completely rest so as not to jeopardize my summer season. With only a week before OUAs and 3 before CIS, I figured that it might be better to cut my losses now than try to limp on for the rest of the season and watch despairingly as races slip from my grasp. My coaches and advisers, urged against rash decisions and advocated a return to the basics: simplicity in training and racing. I heeded their words, yet opted to abstain from the weekend's track meet at McGill in order to preserve myself for OUA's the next weekend. A chance email informed me that I had no choice but to race at McGill, as I needed to have run twice during the season to compete in the championship events.
And so with slight foreboding I went to McGill and raced a 1000m. And won in 2:27.4. Without any inkling of hamstring trouble. In fact, it felt better after the race than it did beforehand.
Now I struggle to decide which races to run at OUAs. The 1500 is a given, but which of the 1000m or 4x800m do I compete in? Is it greedy of me to want to race them all, given that I was considering staying home as of 5 days ago? Alas, how the fickle heart can be swayed.

Regardless, for all of my rather melodramatic prose, I am glad to be back running and racing. I can still feel something in my hamstring, but it doesn't seem to limit my running. Any workouts that I am doing now take place on hills, in order to ensure proper muscle recruitment and running form, and I am maintaining my glute and core strengthening exercises.
When I toe the line at OUA's it will be a stress-free and enjoyable experience: I cannot change what has happened in the last few weeks, whether my hamstring injury was a figment of my fevered imagination I will never know, but I come to race. I come to race.

Be Easy.