Dallas senior Regan Rome has had a remarkable career at Dallas in her first three years. Rome has been a medalist each of her first three years in XC, twice in AAA and in 2012 taking 3rd - leading her team to the podium in 2nd by just three points in AA. She is a three-time defending champ in Distirct 2 (2x AAA,1x AA); and capped off 2012 with a 4th place finish at Foot Locker Northeast, finishing 19th in San Diego, just seven seconds from all-American. And Rome is a three time medalist in AAA in the 3200 in the PIAA champs, plus a two time medalist in the 3k at the PTFCA Indoor Champs, taking 3rd in 2013 in 9:53.59 as Tessa Barrett and Courtney Smith both bettered the state record.
Cross Country:
Entry #1 10/8 | Entry #2 10/31 | Entry #3 11/7 | Entry #4 12/3 | Entry #5 1/2 |
Since last cross country season ended I had been looking forward to the next cross country season, I love everything about cross country: the bus rides, invitationals, hotels, practices, dual meets, workouts, course walks, my teammates, my coach, pasta parties, t-shirt parties and everything else that makes cross country the best sport ever. Instead my cross country season has been filled with physical therapy, chlorine, doctor appointments, biking, x-rays, more chlorine, ice, stim, and more chlorine. To say the least it has been a roller coaster of a season, and it has been hard to stay positive. Luckily I have had great support from my family, teammates, friends, and other runners that make this much easier, and make me remember how truly blessed I am.
My injury started back in mid August right around when official cross country practices started. It started off as a pain down the inside of my quad, I ran for on it for a couple days, but soon it got to the point where I could not run without limping. After taking a few days off and there being no signs of improvement I decided to go to physical therapy. My physical therapist said that I had strained my groin muscle and within a week of massaging it out, I would be okay. It did get better, but I made the mistake of continuing to run through it. When I was running my form was so off because of the pain that this made my hip and knee hurt, which then made me run even more awkwardly. If I had just taken a week off and gone to physical therapy I would most likely be fine right now and would have had solid training in these past six weeks.
Everyday it seemed to be something different when I was running. Some days my hip would hurt, some days my knee hurt, and some days my groin hurt again, and then some days it would all just hurt.
With Dom after his PTXC-5 win
By the time PTXC rolled around, for some reason I decided to race. I raced and things still hurt and my form was completely off, but I did realize that I was not as out of shape as I thought I would be. My time was not too bad and I was not even tired when I crossed the finish line! It was also really nice to see my teammates hard work already paying off, we had so many great performance that day. After PTXC I realized I had to take some time off, so I took a little over a week off. When I came back the next week I was actually running without pain, something I had not experienced in five weeks! I was sick with the rest of my team that week, but that was probably my best week of training this season.
At PTXC-5 with my teammate Lindsey
after her awesome 10th place finish and PR
The next week though things took a turn for the worse. I had a sharp pain in my shin on the leg I had been putting so much pressure on for the last five weeks. I had hardly been running but I feared a stress fracture because I had been running so awkwardly. I immediately stopped running in fear that if I kept running I would not be able to run districts and states and help my team to our goals.
Senior night with my younger brother and sister.
I took about ten days off went to my physical therapist who sent me to an orthopedic surgeon to get it checked out. The orthopedic surgeon I go to is awesome! He was a serious athlete himself, he once held the decathlon school record at Dartmouth. I can’t express how nice it is to have a doctor who was a former athlete himself. He also gave me the great news that I did not have a stress fracture, only a shin splint from running so awkwardly. Two days ago was the first day I ran again, a solid twenty minute run with my mom. I am taking things easy because I do not want to make my shin splint worse and right now my only goal is to get to the starting line of districts and states and do what I need to for my team.
Aside from my injury things seem to be going really well for my team. My team has been working so hard and I can’t wait to see what they do individually in the championship season! The thing I miss the most about cross country is toeing the line for workouts and races with my teammates, hopefully in 4 weeks though I will be on the state line with them! Hopefully things finally start getting better for me, it has been a long seven weeks!
New uniforms at Paul Short!
