Happy Gear Day

Ah, gear day.  Quite possibly the most exciting day of the year for college athletes.  It's honestly a lot like Christmas but with more clothing and less unwrapping.  So, for those of you who have never experienced it, this is what a gear day experience goes like.  (At least for me)
-You are notified that you may now pick up your gear and get your very own locker, and your heart nearly explodes out of excitement.
-You report to the equipment room only to find that the head honcho isn't there at the moment
-You come back four hours later and wait awkwardly in a room full of football players whose thighs are bigger than your entire body
-The head honcho shows up and he is super intimidating.  You consider fleeing, but your desire to get your cool new stuff helps you find the willpower to stay
-Head honcho shows you to your locker
-You almost go blind from the sheer awesomeness of this moment, but you collect yourself long enough to grab your stuff and take off
-You get back to your dorm and roll around in the new things.  (Okay, not really.  But you do look at it for a really long time.)

We haven't gotten our team jackets yet, and the freshman still have to wait to be issued uniforms, backpacks, and duffel bags, but I'm already too excited about all of that.  I think the mascot on our gear is absolutely the cutest thing, and getting new things makes me really happy anyway.  I wanted to wear all of my things at once, but then I remembered it's August so it's still probably too warm out.  Maybe once the Montana winter sets in I'll be able to do that without looking quite as silly.  But until then, I will try to restrain myself.

Running Can Be Hard (And That's Okay)

There's a side of running that no one ever really likes to talk about.  When our friends and relatives tell us we're crazy to enjoy running, we just laugh and say how much we love it and how great it feels when we're out for a long run while they're home on the couch.  But what we never let them in on is that sometimes, it really is as bad as they say.  Whether it's because of overtraining, illness, injury, or just a plain old bad day, runners are people too, and we still have times when we think life might be easier if we dropped running and chose to focus on school and Netflix instead.  In the end, though, that is what really separates the great competitors from the has-beens.  The ability to accept that this sport will be trying both mentally and physically at some point in time, and to push themselves through it no matter how difficult it gets.
Like every other athlete, I have experienced these difficulties myself, though no doubt at a much lower level then those who have gone through it on the collegiate or professional level.  While I was competing in high school, there were several times that I would reach a big race and flop.  At the end of my sophomore and junior years, I found myself overtrained and exhausted.  I ran my slowest times of the season at the state meet, which is never desirable.  It's always frustrating as an athlete to be unable to compete at the level you know you would be capable of if you were completely healthy, especially without a concrete explanation.  I felt like I had the need to justify myself and my poor performances to everyone I came in contact with.  

BYU Invite just a year after my encounters with overtraining

Every runner is going to experience this at some point or another.  Distance running has a tendency to injure and exhaust even the best athletes, and it often takes the support of an entire team to get through it.  I am still very grateful for the influence my closest friends and teammates had on me in helping me to keep trying and to realize that a few setbacks would never be enough to keep me off the track forever.
For anyone who is currently struggling with running, this is the best advice I have to offer you:  Don't let it ruin your love for the sport.  It may be difficult right now, but if you give it time, you can get back on your feet and back in the races.  Don't be afraid to take a little time off to recover if you need to, and don't be afraid to rely on your coaches and teammates for support.  It happens to everyone, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.  I know when I got overtrained, I was extremely embarrassed and ashamed of my performances, but it's completely unnecessary to feel that way.  No one is going to blame you for having difficulties now and then.
Best of luck to all of you, and I hope you all enjoy this cross country season.

I'm a Gym Rat

Like most cross country runners in high school, I avoided the gym like the plague.  When our coaches had us go in to lift, I would typically hide in the corner and chat or pretend to be doing something with the free weights.  Over the summer, however, Jacob got into lifting quite a bit and needed a lifting buddy to go with him at hours that were upsettingly early to say the least.  I decided to buy a gym pass for one month so I couldn't back out of it even if it was terrible and join him for a little while because he claimed that it would improve my running.
The first day was pretty awful.  He claimed it was shoulder day, but it felt suspiciously like it was arm day in disguise.  As a matter of fact, every day felt like arm day in disguise.  The day after my first day in the gym, I thought my arms were going to fall off.  I have never been that sore in my life.  But for some reason I kept going back.  I slowly began morphing into a gym rat.  Jacob and I would go to the gym first thing in the morning and lift for an hour or so every day, then go drink protein and compare bicep size like a couple of weirdos.  Just kidding-our biceps never got big enough to actually compare size.  We did morph into full on gym weirdos for a couple weeks though.  We both even bought lifting gloves and bro tanks so we would look like true professionals.
Believe it or not, lifting actually was not terrible for me as a distance runner.  After a few weeks, I even came to like it.  But, like anything else, it had its pros and cons.
Pros:
-You feel like a stud
-It doesn't take that long to see some results
-It makes you feel accomplished
-It gives you an excuse to eat a little more

Cons:
-Your body will hate it for awhile
-Like seriously, it's awful
-You might die
-Even if you don't die, you'll complain so much that your buddy will want to kill you

Try it.  You won't regret it.