This season, we will follow some of PA's top runners as they journey through the season looking to reach their goals and make history!
Brooke Hutton had a sensational freshman season, and she will be updating us on her attempts to better her first full year of cross country!
As the summer started I slowly increased my mileage until the the beginning of the PIAA Season. Now I am running about 55 miles a week. Along with all of the running, we've included lots of swimming after a hard workout. The water work is great, and really helps with cardio.
During my runs I challenge myself to stay up with guys on my team. I feel like this is an important part of my training because it always forces me to run harder and never give up. As our training progresses we incorporate more speed into our runs. We have also stared hill workouts and tempo runs.
Sunday, August 23rd
We meet at Hibernia Park for an optional long morning run. This run is usually the longest run of the week at an easy pace of about 8 or 9 miles and is used to bring our legs back from a hard week of running. I try to challenge myself by increasing my pace every mile I run.
Monday, August 24th
Every Monday morning the team meets at our school and we do our usual warm up, stretches, and drills. After our warm up, we go on a 4 mile run consisting of hills and grass fields to help prepare us for the hillier races. When we finish our workout we go into the schools wrestling room and do an intense core workout.
Later that day we meet at a park and go out for a long run. After the run and stretching, we do sprints to help us with speed.
Tuesday, August 25th
In the morning the team met at school, to get into the pool and use the aqua jog belts for about 40 minutes. The aqua jogging helps me focus on my running form and breathing.
That afternoon we met at Hibernia Park for a 45 minute run. The point of this run was to go at a good pace to get ready for the scrimmage we had the next day. I got in about five and a half miles with a few of the people on my team.
Wednesday, August 26th
The team met at the school and we did our normal workout and core routine before running. We had our scrimmage later that afternoon so we only ran two and a half miles to warm up our legs and make sure they're feeling good.
Our team left for or scrimmage later that day. When our girls got to the team's high school we walked the first two miles of the course, then jogged the last mile as part of our warm up. After running we did our running drills and some stretching. Since we were running behind we didn't get to finish our normal warm up for meets, but our girls team still ended up doing great and winning the scrimmage! After the race we ran a two mile cool down and cheered for our boys team along the way.
Thursday, August 27th
Since we ran hard the night before, the coaches decided to have our team get a pool workout in again. Once at the pool, we grabbed our aqua belts and aqua jogged for 45 minutes. It helped us get off of our legs and the constant pounding from running on the roads at the school and the park.
Later that day we met at Hibernia Park and ran our warm up. After doing our usual routine we were put into groups of two, based on skill level, and ran a relay. I liked this workout, it was fun and challenging. We had a mile loop we had to run. One person on each team ran one side of the loop and the other person ran the other side. The goal was to meet in the middle, tag hands, and run back. My partner and I worked well together and placed well each time we ran.
Friday, August 28th
The team met at school for our longer run of the day. After warming up and doing running drills, we went out for a 45 minute run. We ran up the VA Hill behind our school and through grass fields at the top of the hill. When we got back, we stretched out.
Saturday, August 29th
I met up with the team at Hibernia Park and ran about eight miles with sprint bursts throughout to help with speed. I liked this run because my legs felt really good and it helped me recover a little bit. This run was our annual team building exercise where coaches host a scavenger hunt, and give clues to about 60 (15 for each team) items hidden throughout the park. Each team has to retrieve their items, and return them to the staging area. Afterwards we hosted a pool party for the team at our house.