In case you don't know me, I will introduce myself. My name is Brendan Simone. I am currently in my first year at the University of Windsor and I am studying Human Kinetics. I am also in my first year running cross country and track and field for the Windsor Lancers. I am originally from Windsor and went to high school at Holy Names Catholic High School. I ran cross country and track all four years at Holy Names and I guess I liked it so much that I decided to continue my running into university.
After going through my first varsity cross country season, I thought it would be cool to start a blog to start writing about my experiences as an athlete and how my season has been. If any of you are thinking that I also got this idea because my fellow teammate Alex Cyr also has a pretty established blog, you might be right but I will never admit it ;). Regardless I've always seen blogging as something pretty neat and since I am also planning on getting a minor in English by the end of my degree, I thought I would give it a whirl.
I feel like every season, whether it is cross country or track, always has its peaks and valleys. It rarely ever happens that you can have a season where all your races are good or all your races are bad. This past season has been far from perfect and definitely contains some ups and downs. To keep this as structured as possible, I will summarize each month of the season starting with August and then finishing with November.
This past season started out about as best as it possibly could have. In the past few summers, I had either been battling injuries or just lazy and never really got in the proper base mileage that was required. However, this August was by far the most consistent August I have ever had of training. I up'd my mileage slightly and only missed a couple runs due to extenuating circumstances (work, vacation). I also raced a waterfront 5k in mid-August and came away with a massive PB of over one minute, running 16:05 (I hadn't raced a 5k since grade 9, lol). So to say the least, once September rolled around I knew I was prepared for the impending mileage jump and the higher intensity workouts to follow.
September was a pretty good month to start off my first university XC season. In September, I raced three times and I each time it was a good performance by my standards. First was our inter squad race just between our team and the St. Clair College team. Now it should be said that it really wasn't a real race as it was only an inter squad and was on the first weekend of school. Nevertheless I surprised myself and finished 5th, a placing which I completely did not see coming and still do not know how it happened. After a few hard weeks of training including our Lancer training camp, I then raced my first official race as a Lancer at the Bill Salter Western Invitational. Despite the scorching heat, I finished 48th and ran a time of 26:52 for 8k. This is still my best 8k time to this date and I was pretty happy with the result. This was a good initial benchmark for the season and seeing how much I improved from the year before (I ran sub 24:00 for 7k twice), how could I be mad. To finish September off, I raced my first NCAA cross country meet in Bloomington, Indiana called the Sam Bell Invitational. I still think this was a decent performance of mine, falling somewhere within the realms of good and bad. I ran 27:02 which is slower than the previous week's meet. However, I shouldn't even bother to try to compare times as of how many factors go into Cross Country and what effects the time. I finished a little bit farther behind my teammates that I finished around at Western. So I'll say my performance in Indiana was about an 8 on a scale of 1-10.
If we are still using the peaks and valleys reference from earlier, than the beginning of October was definitely the biggest valley in the season. I feel like the longer workouts and added mileage was really starting to get to me and effected not only how I performed, but also how I felt. In high school, I mainly trained with my high school coach during the high school season so after 4 years, I was used to his type of training. Although he was a good coach and knew the aspects of distance training very well, the intensity and length of workout change from last year to this year was massive and really took a toll on me. My legs were tired constantly and caused me to have some poor performances in some workouts along with a race. I know that this is something extremely common within first years and the regret not realising it while it was going on and doing something about it. I raced once in this Month, which was at the Bradley Pink Classic in Peoria, Illinois and it was by far the worse race of my season. After 2km into the race, I was spent physically and faded throughout the race all the way to the finish. After this performance, I decided to take the chance to take a little break from racing just to focus on training and to get away from the racing aspect of the sport. I think this was a good decision for me and with some smarter decisions in training (taking easy days easier, not going "full out" every workout), I finished off October with my legs feeling better and some good workouts under my belt. During this time, I got to witness my fellow teammates race at the OUA and then eventually the Usports Championships. Watching them succeed and perform only further fueled the fire going into the later part of the season and made me even more motivated to do the same.
In the month of November, I raced twice as a member of the University of Windsor Athletic Club (UWAC) at IMO, the most important races of my season. First was at Athletics Ontario Juniors where I finished 6th and gained much of my racing confidence back. I was not enthralled by the placing but it was definitely much better than my previous race and I beat some quality guys that I was happy to place ahead of. I was hoping to finish top 3 and qualify for Team Ontario for the upcoming Athletics Canada Nationals in Kingston, but that did not happen and there is always next year for that. This leads into my final race of the season which was at AC Nationals in Kingston where I finished 36th in the Junior Men's race. I always seem to race well on Fort Henry and I think this race stays true to that and I am pretty happy with it. Last year, I was 9th in the Youth race so I think 36th in the Junior race the following year is a good progression. It was a good way to finish off what was pretty crazy first university cross country season and to gain some momentum going into indoor track.
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| Nothing suits XC more than a little bit of mud |
It has been a hard last couple months but if there is one thing that it has taught me, it is that resiliency is key to success and progression. I have learnt that if I truly want to get better and grow as an athlete, I have to put as much dedication as I possibly can into it. There is no point in doing things half-ass'd and without much effort. Goals and aspirations will not be achieved if you don't fully set out to achieve them. I feel that if there is anything to take out of this season that will help me in future, these are the ideas that will help me achieve my goals.
I am super happy with the decision I made to stay at home for school and join the Windsor Lancer XC and track team. The coaches and teammates are incredible and really create an atmosphere which is conducive to success. I have met so many great people with similar goals as mine and are willing to put in the work to achieve them. It will be interesting to see how we all evolve as athletes and if we are all able to achieve what we set out to do.
Well that just about sums it all up. If you have made it this far, I thank you for taking the time to read this post. I plan on posting at least once every two months to go over things and talk about new experiences I have encountered.
But for now, indoor track awaits.
-Simone