The Simple Life

Wake up, eat, class, practice, eat, nap, eat, class, eat, homework, eat, sleep.  Throw in a bit of travelling on the weekends, and you get the life of a university runner.  In the span of no more than 6 weeks, I have completely altered my views on what it means to be doing serious training, and I'm certain my views will continue to change throughout my university years as I learn to adapt to the added workload.   It's a huge jump from the high school running scene in almost every aspect.  To start with the obvious, the running itself is much more demanding.  No longer can I expect to be running at the front of the pack on 40-45 miles a week.  This was probably the biggest jump for me personally, since I had been consistently in between 40 and 45 miles most weeks in my last 2 years of high school.  Just like every other college freshman in the nation, I understand that a jump in mileage will be the key to prepare myself for faster races down the road, but I also understand that when you are working harder, you need to recover harder.  While it may sound cliche, I know that recovery has played a huge role in helping me adapt to a more intense program.  I always thought that I was pretty good at recovering from workouts in high school, sleeping a lot, taking an occasional ice bath, stretching, and maybe a bit of core tossed in there too.  But once again, I was only running a fraction of the mileage that I am now.  It's a whole different story in the world of college sports.  Daily ice baths, saunas, deep tissue massages, structured dynamic stretching and core programs,  pool running, and naps after each practice are only a short list of the recovery tools that are required in order to keep my legs feeling fresh throughout the season.  But all of this running and recovering doesn't mean a thing unless equally strong efforts are made to stay on top of classes.  In a world where professors don't nag you to take a make-up test or prompt you to hand in your assignments, it's not hard to fall into a never-ending struggle to keep good grades.  It's much more work than high school and it comes with much higher expectations, but the key to getting good marks in school is not at all different from that of running.  Success follows hard work.  Study, Run, Recover, Repeat.  That's the key to success.  That's the simple life.