"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