From the Trail

Cross country is going pretty well this year. Things are a little different from last year. We have a new coach, Coach Deb Osteen. She is nice and pushes us at every practice to give our best effort. We have a strong team this year. I think Coach Osteen is doing a good job of coaching us. We have some new members on the team and they just fit right in with us. We push each other in every practice and in the meets. This is what a team is suppose to do! I feel our unity helps us to stay strong and progress. I am very confident in our team. We are a very hard working team. Cross country is a hard sport and takes not only physical strength, but also mental strength. Most people do not realize what we go through to reach our peak performance. It is definitely not an easy sport. It takes a lot of dedication, focus, determination, and hard work. I am not saying that all other sports are easy, because I know all sports are hard and takes a lot of dedication, but I guess I just want people to take our sport seriously and understand how hard we work everyday. It is not us just running through the woods for hours, cross country is more than that.

This is what we have done for the last couple of weeks:

Monday, September 9 - We ran hills for 30 minutes.

Tuesday - we ran around campus for 45 minutes and lifted weights at our new athletic facility .

Wednesday - we went to Van Hook Golf Course and did 4x1-mile repeats. We were getting ready for our home meet.

Thursday - we ran around campus for 30 minutes and lifted weights. We ran 30 minutes, because we had a meet the next day.

Friday - we had our home meet at Vann Hook Golf Course. We performed well. Our team agrees we have the hardest course, which is a good thing, because it is our training ground; therefore, we have an advantage over all of the other teams. We came in fifth overall. I did pretty well. I thought I was going to die, but I serve an awesome God! He gave me strength to finish up the race hard. My time was pretty good. I thought our team did well. Jessica and Keri came in the top 10, which was great!

Saturday and Sunday - we rested or ran on our own.

Monday, 16 September - we went to Van Hook and ran 4x1-mile repeats.

Tuesday - we ran on campus for 45 minutes and lifted weights.

Wednesday - we went to Tateum Park and did a fartlek. We jogged 10 minutes, ran one minute hard, two minutes easy, two minutes hard, two minutes easy, three minutes hard, two min easy, and repeated the 1-3 minutes hard again and jogged for 10 minutes for a cool down.

Thursday - we ran around campus for 30 min and lifted weights.

Friday - we went to Tuscaloosa for the Alabama Crimson Classic Invitational. We came in sixth-place, overall. Jessica and Keri came in the top 15. Once again, our team did performed well. Most of the our runners beat their times from our home meet. Unfortunately, I did not beat my time, but that is okay. I have the next meet to do that! Although, I know I could have ran better, I think I still ran well.

Our next meet is on October 12 at Mississippi College in Clinton, MS. The Jackson State meet on September 28 (my birthday!) was cancelled. A few of our meets have been cancelled, so we could rest in between. I am so proud of our team and confident in our team this year. I know we have the talent and the determination to continue to soar. I think we will have a pretty good year! Go Cross Country!!!!!!! Go Eagles!!!!!!!!!