In His Own Words: Trent Mandato - Saints Start XC 2015 At Brevard Distance Runners Camp

Hello people of the running community! My name is Trent Mandato and I am going to be a junior at Trinity Prep. I would first like to thank Todd for giving me the opportunity to blog this season.

As most people know, every cross-country season starts with a summer of base training. In fact, our team goes to a running camp in Brevard, North Carolina for two weeks each year to get solid mileage with great hill training. Another main purpose for attending the camp is to create deep bonds with each member on the team. Our team arrived at camp on Saturday the 11th, one day before camp officially started. We ran to a trail two miles away from camp. The trail was nothing new as we have run it before. We were first told it would be an easy run with rolling hills. The ironic part was that the trail was actually one rolling hill: Up then down. As we ran back to camp, I realized how talented our team was this season. We all felt strong throughout the run.

On Monday we ran twice, but during day the whole team could not stop thinking about the classic dodgeball tournament that night. Every year our team has attending the camp, we have won at least one of the two weeks. Sadly, that night did not turn out to be a successful one. Our team made it to the quarter finals, but we lost to the staff team. This loss further fueled our fire to wreck havoc at dodgeball the next week. These games that our team plays are small examples that reveal the competitive and unified nature of Trinity Prep.

Wednesday morning our team ran the deadly Art Loeb. Overall, the trail is about 8 miles and most of our team had goals to break a certain time. For the top guys, the goal was to break 60 minutes. Unfortunately it had rained the night before causing many parts to be slick. This slowed us top guys down to a 61:59.

Eventually, Saturday rolled around, and each runner had one thing in their mind that day, Avery Creek. This entirely up-hill 5k would test the depths of each member’s soul. It would be the hardest 5k each member would ever run. To give some perspective on how tough it is, the fastest time ever run was a 21:56 by Griffin Jaworski who went on to run for Auburn. That time was run in the golden age of running for TPXC, 2010. That year was known to be the best year we have had because we put five guys under sixteen minutes. Sunday morning would give some insight to where we our team’s fitness level is. Saturday night, each member of Trinity Prep cross-country would go to bed asking themselves a question that would be answered the next morning: “How much pain can I endure tomorrow?”

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