I’m back with another blog filled with racing and official visits. I hope everyone’s training is going well as we enter the large meets of the Flrunners Invitational and FSU Invite and good luck this weekend in any race you may be competing in.
This past weekend Niceville made the trek over to Lake City for the Alligator Lake Invite. We wanted to run this race because our regional meet will be held there so I was excited to see the new course over there. Our ladies ran great. Our top overall finisher was freshman Mackenzie Shinnick pacing the team to a 4th place finish. Our guys matched the effort of the girls with a 4th place and 16:25 average. I ran well placing 2nd to Sukhi Khosla of Leon who went 15:08. I was a little disappointed though not because of the race, but because his coach wouldn’t let him play volleyball after the meet. Shame, shame. He said he didn’t want to risk injury, but I think he was a little scared of the “Net Monster” known as Nick Morken. Oh well. Congrats also to all the JV runners who competed as they are sometimes forgotten.
After the meet, Thomas and I headed over to Gainesville for my first official visit. Mac Macoy from Alabama (winner of FSU relays 3200) and Zach Langston of South Carolina joined us in touring the facilities. The lone female was Karen Xiang. All the recruits were very nice and the guys were really cool. As we looked through our hosts it was a who’s who of Florida running. JL Hines, Jimmy Clark, Mark Parrish, Elliot Clemente we met them all. Oh keep going? Ok. Andres Arroyo, Ryan Schnulle, Eduardo Garcia, Sean Obinwa. Everyone who completely smoked me out on the course in high school was now staring me in the face wanting ME on THEIR team. To say the least, I was a bit intimidated, but I managed. Their facilities were top notch and we even got to go down on the football field to watch the Gators run out of the tunnel. Paul Spangler was very gracious to the recruits and I’m very thankful for the opportunity. I look forward to more visits as I move forward in the recruiting process.
As a final point, I would like to give a shout out to Tristan Hamer for being freshman of the week and 17:01 PR last week. I will see everyone next week at Flrunners so good luck and happy running to all.
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