Hello Flrunners! Now that the season is officially underway, I hope those who raced had a great opener. I have seen some fast times already recorded, which is awesome. It makes me even more excited for the meets to come.
Our team stayed local this past weekend and ran at the Estero 3D Invite at Estero Community Park. Coach Sommer definitely knows how to make a challenging course. I personally enjoy the course, as it forces you to be mentally strong throughout the entire race. It is a great way to start off the season. Considering the heat and the toughness of the course, our team did a great job working together, good enough for fifth place. It was a tight race for second; we were only 16 points away. I am very proud of our team, and hopefully we continue to improve as a unit.
From an individual standpoint, I struggled a little this race.Throw in a hard week worth of training, a ton of homework, the heat, and a few volleyball sand courts along the way, and you get a pretty tough twenty minutes of running. On top of that, I was battling a cold all week. By mile two, I started to feel the effects of my cold, but everything seemed to be going alright until about five seconds from the finish. My legs decided not to cooperate and I collapsed at the line and had to be carried off! It was definitely not the most fashionable way to cross the finish line, I would say. Not to mention all of the pictures and even a video of my fall, haha, I found it both funny and really embarrassing that a picture of me face-planting was the one chosen for our local paper.
My coach has constantly been checking in on me to make sure I am eating right and hydrating properly to achieve the best race results. That is one thing that everyone has control over and that will always help the uncontrollable. We figured out that this was not the issue, as I have been eating well and hydrating. I attribute my fall to my sickness in combination with the heat. I do stress to every athlete: ALWAYS eat and drink well; your body needs it more than you realize. Us Floridians have this heat and humidity to battle in September, so always be cautious and prepared!
I don’t know about everyone else, but the lightning around our school has been terrible. This has majorly affected our team and the location of our practices. Running through the school hallways is no longer an option, since the hard surfaces are a killer for our legs, One day this week, practice was cancelled due to lightning, but my teammate Amber and I wanted to get our run in. We were not allowed to run on our campus, so we decided to drive to Bishop Verot High School, our rivals, and run on their track All of their sports practices were waiting for the lightning to let up, so we turned a few heads as we ran in the bad weather. My cousin plays football there, and my aunt happened to be in a meeting while Amber and I were running. Coaches saw us and told the principal, who happened to call out my aunt during the meeting. It was all in fun, but my aunt thought she was in trouble. You could only imagine the surprised look on her face. I didn’t realize running on their track would spread like wildfire!
This Saturday our team is hosting Optimist at Veterans Park in Lehigh. It is another tough course, and we will have the largest showing in its history. I wish everyone the best of luck this weekend!
I thought I would include a quote that I thought fits as a reminder in the beginning of the season: "Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it." Keep putting in that hard work!
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