Monday 8/20: Today was our first meet, and it was our home opener. The competition at this meet is not honestly that great. There were a few kids that did well. I didn’t get a good night sleep the night before the race because i was up doing my Calculus homework that i procrastinated to do. I’m not a fan of after school Cross Country meets because I always feel sluggish when it is about time to race. I did about a 1.5 mile warmup with strides. The race started and you always have the small school kids who sprint the first 400 to to 800 meters and doing that on our course is not a smart decision since the about 500 meters of the first 800 is all up hill. Our team runs well as a pack and we came through our mile at about 5:07 which was too fast for the first meet but we went with it. After we went through the two mile my quads started to feel heavy and tight, and i fell off really bad. Teammates Arthur Cross-Najafi(2) and Lane Barrett(1) kept with it and ended up going 1 and 2 with a time of 16:37. I ended up with a disappointing 5th at 17:10. I was really mad after the race so i did a 6.5 mile cool down.

Tuesday 8/21: Today was a recovery run off the race so I ran 10 at a comfortable pace but my right calf was really tight. The team did a road run! Our athletic director doesn’t allow us to run on roads while in season unless under our coaches supervision, and with a teammate getting hit by a truck 2 summers ago on an unofficial run he will never let us run roads while in season. The run was a 7 mile out an back and when I got back to the course i ran an extra 3 miles. My legs were really sore so i stretched a lot throughout the rest of the night.

Wednesday 8/22: I was expecting a workout but my coach thought we needed an extra day of rest. My legs still felt sore but I ran 10 at about 6:30 pace. Then stretched a lot that night after church.

Thursday 8/23: When I got to practice coach told me that the team was going to do a workout. He told us we were doing 200 strides and I know that 200 strides with my teammates means 200 sprints cause everyone tries being top dog between Lane, Arthur, Brian, and Me in a speed workout. Plus I haven’t done any speed work yet, so as we were finishing our warmup 1.5 mile I didn’t stop with the team and kept running and skipped the workout because I didn’t want to be sore for Saturday and I do not want to do speed yet. Let’s just say coach was not to happy with me trying to be a rebel and gave me the “talk”. I just ran 8 for the day and after my legs felt great. I was going to take an Ice Bath but my school got this new trainer who only cares about the “Football Team”. He said I would be able to take one when i asked before practice but when I got there he said that he didn’t have any ice. After he walked out I checked the ice machine and it was full. So now I HATE our new athletic trainer.

Friday 8/24: Today was pre-race and in the past our team usually runs a 4 mile run. So I did the 4 mile run then went and made the trainer to let me take an ice bath. After all this i realized I should have ran more than 4 cause I am trying to keep my miles up. Oh well, I stretched a lot this night.

Saturday 8/25: Today was Tiger Run! Our coach has talked about this race since the day after we ran it last year! He really wanted to beat them but we managed to get 2nd out of the 37 team field after our 3rd place finish the 2 years before this. I think there were about 50 plus teams entered in the race but not were all complete. At this race Varsity can have 10 runners per team but we raced top seven. The team that beat us was the St. Xavier Tigers and they are ranked first in Kentucky and 23rd in the nation. They are the Carmel or CN of Indiana for Kentucky. If you have ever ran this race or heard of it, it is so crazy! 342 runners were in the varsity race!!!!! If you know the course you understand that after the first 400 meters the width of the course slims down to about 25 feet or less. So need to make sure you get out fast. Then at the 800 you have a 5 foot wide turn that turns about 120 degrees, not really a great course to race unless you are at the front. I was in about 40th at the 800 so i was pretty fine. This course is really flat and the hill is a bump for my team compared to our course, so it was no problem. I finished in 20th place in 16:37 and arthur was 11th in 16:21 and lane went 16:27 for 17th. Our 4th runner is still trying to find his legs because he is able to go sub 17 right now and our 5th runner is not allowed to run right now. I ended up with 8 miles for the day.

Sunday 8/26: Today was an easy 10, but I ran around 5p.m. and it was really hot so the pace was slow.

Total Miles: 60

The next meet I’ll be running is at Terre Haute’s State preview Saturday. Thanks for reading! If you need to contact me add me on facebook or follow me on twitter aaron_zollman.