I am a Freshman in college and I have been running since my sophomore year of High School. I have run 3 seasons of cross country and 6 seasons of track. I have been a varsity runner for 2 of those cross country seasons and 4 of the track seasons. I started out running cross country with times that ranged from 24:00 (my first race) to 20:30 (my Pr my first season). During track I really decided to focus on speed and during indoor I ran with the varsity runners even though they were well above my head. I earned my first varsity letter during Outdoor track when all of my training kind of paid off. I substituted twice for our 4x800 meter relay and once for our 4x200. My "PRs" of the season were 5:07 (mile) 11:17 (3200) 2:17 (800) and 24 (200). Overall I was happy with my season.
The summer before my Junior year I got lazy, I only ran 7 or 8 times the entire season. But I got lucky. My body retained much of the "work hard mentality" and once cross country came around I found myself starting 5th on the team. This year my times ranged from 20:17 (sick during this race) to 17:47 (ridiculously easy course). But usually I fell around the 19:20-18:40 range. During indoor track my Junior year I used it much like i did my sophomore year, as a building stage. My prs this season were a 2:10 in the 800 and also a 56 in the 400 (I was a fill in for the 4x4 relay). These were the only races I ran during this season. Also, our 4x800 team made it to states this year, but due to myself being sick and foul play (a trip) to our top runner we didn't do very well.
During outdoor my Junior year I continued with my 800 time, dropping it to a 2:09. My coach also found that I had potential as a 400 runner. So, halfway through the season he had me start running the open 400. My time quickly dropped from a 56 to a 53, a pretty solid time for only a few races run in my opinion. I found that my best weapon during this race was the endurance I had from cross country, in the last 100 meters where everyone was dying I was the guy still sprinting up from lane 5.
My Senior year came with a surprise-captaincy for the cross country team. Over the summer I had trained hard and started off the season very well. Our team did very well during the season , taking second in our county as well as second in our region (we tied for first and the other team beat us out by half a point in the tiebreaker) My Pr this season was during the second race of the season, an 18:09. until the middle of the season I ran around 18:25 and under. However I got sick for a week and had to miss 2 meets and a week of training. This majorly hurt me mentally and physically. For the second half of the season I was struggling to get under 18:30. During our championship season I began to notice the outside of my ankle acting up-painfully. Turns out nothing came of it, but it did affect my performance in all 3 of our championship races, making my best time 18:30 and my worst 21:20.
During track I decided to forgo distance work and concentrate solely on my 400. During the indoor season (again used for building) my prs were 1:16 (500) 39.09(300) and 56(400) . I was a bit disappointed with my 400 time, but when your indoor track is 200 meters, the turns really kill you.
Outdoor track is what I consider to be my most successful season of my career. I started off running a 52.2 in the 400. and a 24.01 in the 200. I then began to realize that the 200 was my key to a successful 400 race. as the season went on I still ran in the 52.6 and under range, but never breaking that 52.2. Then during one of our mid season meets I passed out on the last 100, skidding across the finish line and receiving 2nd degree burns on my shoulder and arms, as well as my face (luckily no scarring occurred on the face). This put me out for 1 meet and 1 week. As the season drew to a close, the seniors on our team realized something horrible-senior prom was the night before our regional championship.Personally- I only got about 3 hours of sleep. The day of the championship was the biggest success as well as the biggest failure in my career. I qualified for the finals in the 200, running a 23.2 and received 5th place in the finals by .02 seconds. This meant i did not qualify for the state meet by .02 seconds. i was quite upset. Our 4x2 also got 5th place by a similarly small margin. I decided to sit out the 400 because the 4x200 and 400 are always back to back. I shouldn't have done that. There was literally an hour between the 4x200 and 400 today. the 4th place time (last time to qualify) was a 53.6-a time I knew that I could have beaten. Needless to say, once the 4x4 came around I was pretty angry at the entire day. I was determined to make it up in this 4x400. Our team, once again, was seeded at 5th and we only needed to drop 2 seconds in order to get the 4th place. I believe we could have done it. Until our 2nd leg got cut off almost dropped the baton, and pushed into another lane. By all means, according to the rules and regulations the other team should have been disqualified, however, I guess the official was feeling sympathetic that day so he didn't do it. Needless to say I was furious. by the time the baton got to me (I was the anchor leg) we were in last by a good 100 meters (thats a lot of ground to make up in a 400 for those who don't know). However, I didn't care. I went after that runner fueled by fury and caught up to him at the 250 mark, stayed with him until the 300 and passed him right at the 315. Even though we didn't qualify for states I was "happy" with my race, and I consider it to be the best race of my career.
Over the summer I ran with a few of the guys from the cross country team, we mostly did long runs 6-13 miles. I decided not to run cross country my 1st semester in college, I was worried that my ankle would start acting up again. Now I have started my training for indoor track which begins on January 19th.
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