Hey FlRunners! My name is Nic Jacobsen and I am going to be a junior this year at Saint Andrew’s School in Boca Raton. Throughout my season I will be taking you all with me on the rollercoaster ride of ups and downs that defines cross country. With school just two or three weeks away for most of us, the excitement that comes with the fall invitationals and showdowns is looming, and I am eager to get started!
Before I bring you up to speed on what my summer training consisted of, I would like to share a brief background of my running up to this point. After playing soccer, basketball, and baseball for years, I decided to give cross country and track a try when I entered middle school. In sixth grade I was running maybe 10-15 miles per week and still considered myself a soccer player more than anything else. By 8th grade when I had progressed to 30 or 35 miles per week I began to find it difficult to balance my running and my soccer playing. That spring, after my travel soccer season had ended and I was training fresh, I ended up running 4:34 for the mile and made the decision for high school that I would focus on running full time. Although at this point I wasn’t a huge fan of the sport in general, it didn’t take long for running to become a passion, an obsession, a lifestyle or anything else you want to call it. Going to a small school like Saint Andrew’s opened my eyes to this concept, as virtually every teacher and classmate knows me as “the kid who runs a lot.” Although I struggled with the transition into high school running for a variety of reasons, this past spring reaffirmed my love for competing and everything that goes into it. After not breaking 10:13 for the two mile all year, I ran 9:46 at regionals and 9:32 at states for a runner up finish. My sophomore track season gave me a springboard right into this summer with the most confidence I have had in a very long time!
With that being said, my coach and I have taken a very cautious, laid back, and progressive approach to my summer training knowing that it can be easy to overdo things after a big breakthrough when the tendency may be to push the envelope a bit. From the end of May when I resumed training, up until the end of July, I was doing all steady running at an easy to moderate pace and was only focused on feeling good while upping my miles a bit. I threw in some strides or surges here and there and I was able to get in 10 days of very hilly running on beautiful trails while visiting my grandparents in Delmar, NY at the end of June. This visit was a great way to kick off my summer training as it got me out of the heat of Florida and allowed me to simply eat, sleep, run, and watch Jeopardy. More recently, my family and I have been road tripping all across the northeast (PA, NH, RI, MA) visiting friends, family, and colleges! It is during this time that my training has started to come around (mainly because it is 75 degrees and I don’t have to wake up at 5:15 to run), although as of August 1st, I have run only three real workouts all summer: one fartlek, one tempo run, and one set of hill repeats. Entering August and nearing the school year, I wouldn’t say I am very fit, but rather that I am on the right track to becoming very fit. It is still extremely early in the season, but I am coming in running more miles and having more consistency than I ever have before!
As far as goals for the season, it has been frustrating trying to explain to everyone who asks that I really don’t have any concrete goals right now. In the past, I think I have gotten so wrapped up in the end goal that I overlooked the process to get there. It isn’t that I was not working hard in my training, but more like I was not really present day in and day out, focusing on what I was doing in the moment. This summer, especially because the first two months had a real lack of structure, has allowed me to take the means to reach my goals one day at a time and I am really just enjoying the process of training and enjoying the act of running in its most basic form. I know that if I can string together day after day, and week after week of consistent work doing more volume than I ever have before, I will be in great shape by the end of the season. Basically, I would say my goal is just to get myself so fit that I will be able to handle any goal I could set for myself; there is no need to put a limit on anything.
I look forward to discussing my racing, training, and craziness with everyone this season and I hope all the other student athletes around the state have had healthy and successful summers of training!
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