Hello again,

In my last blog I talked about my transition from sprinting to my new home of middle distance running vaguely and I wanted to go more in depth with the change-over and the process of almost learning a whole new sport.

I think there is a reason why they have Cross Country in a different season than indoor or outdoor track and field, which is that it is a completely different type of running. Instead of a constant flat oval marked out, you can run up or down hills, on unsturdy terrain, on grass dirt, concrete or track or a combination of all four, and it is at times much harder to map out mentally how you have to pace yourself than when you run on a track. I discovered this in my one season of running cross country when I ran club back in middle school.

I was not always a sprinter and actually have a very strong base in distance work. From the time I was five years old I was running on a club team every summer from March to the late weeks of July and early August. While most kids were off at summer camp, my younger brother and two older sisters spent our evenings at Lower Merion track, Haverford College, Ashbridge Park or other local tracks running workouts. It wasn't that we felt that we were missing anything, but that was all we ever knew was running. In fact the team was only open to kids 8 years or older when I joined, but one night with my dad and younger brother watching, I ran 20 laps in lane 8. The next day the coach asked if I would like to join the team. I still to this day don't recall much from that night but the strong desire that I wanted to prove something to myself. That and that alone has been what has kept me in this sport.

I continued running through AAU competitions and USATF meets, improving up until the time when I was 14 and began high school when my family had a falling out with the coach. In my time with the Dashers Track Club I accomplished a good deal including a 7th place finish at the Youth Nationals in my age group in the 800 when I was 13 and in that same year also being ranked top 20 in the country in the 8 and 15 as well as city cross country champion in Philadelphia in my one year of cross. Before I go on, I really owe a great deal to my first coach Dermot Anderson. He allowed me to be apart of his team and enabled me to travel all around the United States at a young age including New Orleans, Portland, Orlando just to name a few. 

High school was a completely different world for me, and for the first time I was running against full grown men who were in some cases up to five years older than me. About a month into my outdoor season my coach removed me from the distance team and I was forced to run sprints for the first time in my life. Over the course of the last 9 years I learned how to sprint pretty well. It allowed me to go to a great school, Rutgers, and helped me to earn two degrees. I was fortunate enough to make a US Junior team and travel to Barbados as a relay alternate as well as be a 13 time all conference member of the BIG EAST and a three time Academic All Star for the BIG EAST. I've run the fastest time in the world in the 500 and have been able to try everything from the 4x1 to the DMR. That is a big part of who I am now and I use my successes from the past to build upon my time now. 

I come back to my second paragraph where I say cross was such a different sport than track, and I see now that sprinting is just as much as a different sport as distance running is. It feels like I have almost had to learn a whole new sport, like as if I were learning to walk again. I am learning a great deal about my body and myself through this training, such as what my body responds well to and how to build effective daily habits to optimize my output in practice. I am learning when to push hard and when to pace, when to lay off and when to rest and so far it is going well. I am very lucky to have great energy around me and such intelligent masterful people of the sport, from coaches to teammates and hopefully I can have the type of output and success this year that I did in the past. Thanks for reading.