"TREE" weeks after the Jamboree and I finally find some time. . .

As you can see it has been three weeks since my first college cross country race and I apologize for not having updated this earlier but with school and everything else it has been hectic. We were on the line, over one hundred and fifty of the best college athletes in the country, the sun beaming down people shouting and ringing bells on the side line and i'm smack bang in the center of it all. Standing behind and beside literally the top guys in the nation. For example the guys from NAU, Arkansas and not forgetting the lads from OSU! As I said before training with them on a daily basis is something else but seeing the top four guys on our team race one of the hardest cross country courses in the U.S and look easy doing it is phenomenal! A big shout out to them for winning the team title as well.

On the other hand my race didn't go as well as I would have liked but I am still coming out with a positive look. My first 5km I was feeling fine and had implemented the plan that Dave gave me before the race. Unfortunately I could not execute the rest of the plan. The plan was to go through the first mile at 5minute pace and feel good through 5km, then pick it up the last 3km. I think it's safe to say I crawled the last 3km due to a combination of things the heat, being over whelmed by the whole experience and having only had about 4weeks max of proper training behind me. Looking at it from that point of view I was pretty happy with where I finished in regards to members on the team and my time. What made the occasion that bit better was the fact that my sister and her boyfriend came up to watch me which was nice. Who knows maybe next year they will race it too!

Moving on from that I have to say the last three weeks have gone well training wise and I feel like I am getting fitter each week. One thing that really stands out to me reading articles about certain athletes who made extravagant leaps this year is that if you are consistent in training and train smart the results will come and so that is one of my goals for the year, to stay healthy and keep my training very consistent. The way I look at it is if I can make slight improvements over my four years in college it will combine to one big improvement over the four years. 

Apart from training nothing much has happened her in the big city of Stillwater, at the Chili Pepper this year the guys won the team event fairly handy with our fifth man placing 10th. I made the decision not to travel to it because I only found out I could race midway through the week and so I hadn't eased down. Not that I minded I had a good solid week of training with some of the other guys that didn't race. Because I didn't race the Chili Pepper I will not be racing until after the new year. I think mentally this might be a challenge but i'm hoping it will make me that bit hungrier to compete well and keep motivated! Till next time,

Tommy 

Run, eat, sleep, class and more sleep!

It's been a while since my last blog but, things are going well training and school wise, as I have finally settled in and got in some sort of routine.
Slowly but surely I have built up to my max mileage for the winter months. I am feeling really good running with all the guys on my longer and harder run.
For those of you who like stats, I am running around 25% more than my previous years in secondary school and around 42% of my weekly mileage is done on Saturday and Sunday. You can see we utilize the weekends to get some good training done.Aside from the big step up in training and having training partners I think the real thing that will benefit me out here is the amount of spare time I have.
I get to schedule my classes around training so, instead of training and rushing straight to class I get to stretch, go to the ice baths if needs be or even get treatment. This helps a lot because I know back home I would mostly be rushing after school to get my workouts done and would not have time to do the 1percenters as many coaches call them. But they are very important because if you add them up it is those that will give you that extra little push at the end of your race.
 My Dad used to say training in general is money in the bank and every time you train you invest in it so when you need to spend a lot, there is no worries about scrounging for that extra bit of fitness. And to be honest I really do believe in that philosophy of running. It is all about chipping away every year making slight increases and improvements but most importantly staying consistent.
I think another big thing I am able to do is NAP. So far naps are the things saving me from being totally shattered and wrecked  and with a good bit of time in between classes I have a lot of time to nap.
So this week I will be doing a LOT of napping because of the OSU home cross country meet "The Jamboree". I will be running unattached because I am red shirting. Even so, I am still really excited to race and see what sort of shape I am in. Also my sister is coming up to support me which will be fun to see her and have the craic.
Hopefully it will go well, I will keep ye updated.

Tommy

The American dream. . .

It's official, i'm in Stillwater Oklahoma. Training day in and out with the best college athletes in the states. When I was being recruited by Coach Smith he said to me "Our training group is probably the best distance group in the world for guys between the ages of 18-24year old's, excluding East Africa. And being here for little over 2weeks I would well believe it!
The group here is somewhat different to any other group in the country.Mainly because on the men's side there are no sprints, jumps or throwers. Well there is one thrower. But the rest run anything from 800-10,000m's.
This means there are about 25guys that run distance so no matter what level you are at there is always someone to run with. Even this alone is awesome, especially compared to doing 13/14 mile runs by yourself in the Irish winter. The cool thing is as well, everybody on the team is from a different background, culture, society, country. For instance we got people from Canada, England, Germany, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Romania, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Burundi and now Ireland. Which makes me think that there should be a lot of drama and fights on the team but instead everybody seems to gel really well which makes an awesome positive atmosphere. By the way sorry if I left any countries out.
The facilities here are unreal for track and cross country. First off OSU has its own Cross Country coarse. We have a track that can't be used for competitions but is perfect for training on. Then inside the Football stadium we have a gym where we do core and hurdle drills, a training room where we can get treated, ice baths and numerous dirt roads to do our long runs on. This is my favorite part though, every Sunday through Wednesday we get training table. This is basically we get to eat where the football players and basketball players eat and so the food is UNREAL!
OSU is pretty good at sports in general, the Football team is ranked 8th so far this year, i'm not sure about the Basketball team but the Football stadium can hold 60,000 and the Basketball 15,000.
So enough about the school facilities. I have just finished my first week of college which has been pretty handy and my 3rd solid week of training which has been not as easy as school. But I finally think I know a schedule that works for me in relation to classes training and napping.
Okay so I forgot to mention what I did before I actually arrived in Oklahoma. Instead of going straight to Stillwater I went down to Louisiana to visit my sister. I have to say leaving Mum, Dad and Lil was hard but I was grand once I got on my way. Even though I didn't spend a lot of time down there we did loads. First we went out to the Caraways house. After hanging out there and shooting some targets we went tubing with Alligators on the Calcasieu river which was really fun. So a big shout out to them for putting up with me for the day! Then have to say spending time in Leesville Louisiana is always epic. That is where Aislings boyfriend comes from. His house is right beside a national forest and Fort Poke, an Army base where U.S soldiers get trained up. All I can say is those Watermelons had not a chance when me and Win took the guns to them!

I've no other real news. Only that I'm excited to be here, running well and ca't wait for the season to come.
I will keep ye posted, Peace.
P.S i'm trying to get pics up but if not this time I will learn for my next blog.

                                           View from training table.

                                                Long horn Cow on our tempo

                                                           The guys training

                                                      Again. . .

                                                  . . .

                                                     . . .

                                                everyone in the icebaths

                                                 Boone Pickens Stadium

                                                       
                                                       

Middle of Summer break and the lovely Irish weather!

I am currently on my break. It feels nice to take a rest because coming up to my last race at the Morton mile meet I felt very tired and my legs felt like bricks. Looking back I think this was mainly because I did a lot of track work in early April and that can only last for so long. But it is something I will know for again.

In saying that though I was very pleased with my season as I achieved my main goal, defending my Irish schools senior 1500m title (Which only a few have done the double) and then winning the National Track and Field Junior 1500m. Two very different races. One going out in 60secs the other in 84secs. Which when I worked it out is slower than my tempo pace!!!During my secondary school athletic career I have made many friends that I keep in contact with all the time and although I did not set the track alight with blistering fast times each year I have made steady progress to set myself up for my college career. This I can attribute to my Dad(coach) and my P.E teacher Tommy Craddock (TC). Instead of running really fast and then getting injured or burned out I was always there plugging away and I think that will stand to me in the long term. All in all I am happy with what I have achieved and am excited for whats to come.

Back to the now, my break. I'm taking a bit of an earlier break this year because of my move to OSU. So instead of running into August i'm going to build the miles up for cross. So after the Morton mile meet I met up with my friend Jonathan Phillips and we headed west back to lovely Sligo. Luckily the weather took a turn for the better so we took advantage.

Our first adventure took place the very next day. We fixed up some bikes and hit the road with my friend Donal. We cycled from my house out to Dromahair, on the way passing through one or two forest trails, only to find Donal's handlebars came loose. After about half an hour to forty five minutes we found people who had an allen key and we were on our way again. Only to find nobody in the town knew where the "Sligo way" trail was. Until we eventually saw it DEAD CENTER of the main street. Shows how observant we were. So we were on our way...again. Cycling over Killary mountain on a dirt road looking down on Lough Gill and the Isle of Innisfree. We thought it was a great idea that is until we hit "The BOG" This is where the road stopped and we were left to trek over mountainous bog with a few logs put down along the way to help us (Little it did). What didn't help at all was Donal's tire going flat. This slowed us even more. So we ploughed on and eventually came to Slish wood. This was a relief as it was tough going through all that muck. We then had to ring Dad so Donal could get a lift home. Johnny and me were left to brave it out. We cycled to my Grannies house from Slish wood via the holy well which, for anyone who knows it, is not the flattest of roads. By this time we were on the road nearly 6hours and hadn't eaten anything so stopping into my granny's for a cuppa was a God send! We eventually got home 7hours later and were truly "whacked".

The next few days we just chilled out and went to town for a bit. On the Monday we went swimming at Rosses point, I was surprised the water was really warm, straight after we took a walk up Knocknarea as it was such a nice day. I have to say I was disappointed I did not have a 360degree camera as the view was spectacular! That night we went down to the forest beside the lake and had a camp fire with a few more of the lads. Again it was a spectacular view, with the full moon shinning on the calm, quiet lake.Hopefully the weather will clear up and we can do it again soon, as for now i'm staying inside because the weather is storm like.

 I'm going to take just under a week more of a break and hopefully I will be completely recovered to start building up the miles to have a solid season out in Oklahoma.

Tommy

The first one...

So I finally decided to start a blog. Mainly so friends and family can keep up with me while i'm studying and running at OSU. Yep that's right, Oklahoma State University. So far the 2009 and 2010 NCAA crosscountry Champions! And hopefully they will repeat that this season to become one of very few colleges to get the triplet.
During the year I was asked by a few (mainly Runningman) to start up a blog but, due to the almighty Leaving Cert I really didn't have the time.
So I said "While I'm on my 2week break I might as well try it out" or "See what the craic is with this whole thing". I really don't thing i'm going to blog my training weeks for example;

 6mile Monday, workout Tuesday etc....

Because as my English grinds teacher told me earlier on in the year "Normal people don't get the nitty gritty running Jargon" and its boring. Don't get me wrong the odd time I will through a few workouts in but I'm not going to go overboard!
I think that's all I have to say for now, but in a day or two I will write a blog giving people back ground on my Secondary School career and what i'v been doing on my break :D

Peace out, Tommy