The title of this post as quoted by William Arthur Ward is one of my favorite quotes of all time. Not only because it tells us that failures are crucial to success, but it all tells us that sometimes things are going to rough, very rough. However, even if the hard times last for 1, 2, or plenty more races that at some point not giving up on your dreams will be the difference in the end. The beauty is that comebacks happen all the time, and the break through race is just around the corner. This is what I am taking from my freshman year of running in college. I had a few ups, but the downs, lets just say I have plenty to share with others. Coming off of my senior year of high school running career which was a huge leap in the right direction towards being a great runner, I thought that it would just continue to progress so quickly and there was no way I wouldn't get better. Well I was wrong. While I was hitting times in workouts that were way quicker than high school, I was way more inconsistent on them and my everyday runs. This was new to me because every single day at high school practice was a blessing my senior year. They were all fast and I knew I was ready to compete at any moment. For some reasons this year was a different story as my races showed me time and time again.
To start off the first year as a Triton I had cross country, my favorite high school sport. Coming from being the captain/leader of the Johnston team I loved to be an example of hard work, because I know in the end it will not only make a difference to me, but the others around me. So I did what I knew best I put in the hard work everyday, but something was missing. I love my Tritons and have grown more and more fond of them, but the team chemistry was way less than what I had at Johnston. This bothered me a lot. I tried to find that spark with everyone, but it was hard. As the season went on it got better with a handful of them, but with a team about a 1/4 the size of my last cross country team the energy was not flowing as much. Maybe it was just me, and I will never know because by the time I hit cross country next I will be ready to lay everything on the line every day for my team because we have a national championship to take back next year. The fire is back. My season ended with coaches association All-American in both Cross Country Nationals and Half-Marathon Nationals, in which as a team we finished 2nd and 1st respectively.
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| XC National Championships 2013 |
Next up it was my first winter of indoor track and that meant no swim team for the first time in a long time. This was a change I was sure would make my track season 10x better because I would be running more before track started. I give credit to all of the runners that made the trek through this winter every day because it was brutal. After several weeks of training after cross country it was time to race again and this time it would be races like the mile, 3k, 5k, and a few odd ball events, that would be entertaining me throughout the season. I started the season feeling pretty great about my training with Blake Whalen, one of my Triton teammates. I ran a few a meets, and was getting better with every meet until my first true injury happened. While on a training run, I slipped on the ice while taking a corner pretty quite and landed HARD on to my hip. I know as soon as I fell that something wasn't right, but I wanted to race that weekend because it was a big meet. So I just kept it on the down low and pushed through my workouts as if nothing was wrong. Although I got the same time in the 5k as my previous 5k something was not right. I wasn't able to make my surges like I always like to do doing races. I told my coaches about it, and we tried to heal it up while continuing to get ready for indoor championship season. The scar tissue was pretty bad I can imagine because my turnover rate had gone south for quite some time. My season ended without a national championship because even through I was qualified for the national meet in the 3k, I was not the best man for the 3rd spot on the team for nationals(they only take 3). So I got watch the meet online and read Facebook post as my team won a national championship. It was bittersweet because I wanted to be a part of that team so badly. However, now it was time for outdoor and I needed my speed back.
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| Regional Championship 2014 |
So for outdoor I knew my turnover rate had suffered quite a bit because the injury, and I made the decision to switch to the mid-distance training group on our team to focus on faster workouts and training for the 3k steeplechase a race that was brand new and different for me. The group was faster, a lot faster. They kicked my butt from day one, but as the season progressed I started feeling stronger and more confident about my speed. Along with speed I had something else to work on for this season in particular. Hurdling the barriers for my steeplechase. If you would have told me a few years back that I would be doing steeplechase at nationals I would have probably died laughing because I have never really been coordinated in anything. I never hurdled before so this would be my first season jumping over things en route to the finish. At first I was rough to say the least. Every time we would have steeplechase practice I would take a solid 15-20 minutes to build the courage to even attempt to jump the barrier, let alone hurdle it with form. With every practice I would build more and more courage, and my form was starting to look less and less like a bird flapping its wings trying to fly. A few weeks out from nationals I got the cut time for nationals and this time I was the 2nd man on the team, so unless something crazy happened in next couple weeks I would finally get my shot to represent the track team at outdoor nationals. That brings me to where I am now. It's about 3:00 AM in Mesa, AZ, and my national 3k steeplechase was in the books a several hours ago. It was not the race I wanted to have exactly, but I did what I could in the conditions. Even through I am not particularly happy with the my race and the fact that I was unable to help the team with a few points, I am comforted with the fact that my drive to race is still crazy high, and as soon as I crossed the finish line I made a promise to myself I would podium in the steeplechase next year no matter what.
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| Jumping The Water Pit in 3k Steeplechase |
So my freshman year wasn't quite what I expected in terms of racing, but I have learned a lot about myself and what I need to perform better the next year as well as the triathlon season ahead of me. So for me it is a few days off completely, then I hit to pool and bike hard for a few days before throwing some running back into the mix as I begin to train like crazy and focus more and more on the little things that will add up in the end. As one chapter closes in my life another one opens, and I can't wait to see what the future holds. Thanks for reading this post and I hope you continue to follow my races throughout this summer because there are going to be plenty to read about!
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