The Travel Journals: Tommy Brocato of St. Thomas Aquinas

<p> A series attempting to follow selected runners as they travel, race, and highlight their personal experiences while doing so.</p> <p> &nbsp;</p>

Missisippi College Watson Ford Invitational: Clinton, Mississippi 

I have ran this course as a two mile many times when I was in grade school at Holy Ghost. It has always been challenging to me, but I consistently pull off a decent time. I ran this course once my freshmen year, and had not been back until the weekend before last. My teammates and I have had challenging weeks of practice over the past two and a half weeks to get ready for big races such as this one. My goal for this weekend was to improve my time from last weekend where I ran on this same course.

 

After school on Friday, I went off to practice with the team. Practice consisted of our routine pre meet, which consist of an easy run and some strides. After we ran we had a little fun and team bonding with a quick game of football, and yes, I had a few touchdown passes. After practice, I headed home to rest and eat my pre race meal of chicken spaghetti. My mom cooks this for me every night before a race. Afterwards, I went to support our football defeat Pine. I then later headed home for bed.  

 

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:30 to get ready to head over to Clinton, Mississippi. I packed all my rain gear due to Tropical Storm Karen out in the Gulf. Luckily, I did not need it, but if I would not have brought the rain gear, it would have poured all day. We drove two hours that morning from Hammond to Clinton and arrived at the course around 9:15. The weather was warm, cloudy, and 73 degrees. About an hour later, when it was time to warm up, it was hot, sunny, and 85 degrees so it did not take to much to get warmed-up. We then went through our pre race routines of stretching and drills. My teammates and I also cheered on the girls who raced at 10:30. At 10:45, we headed to the line for our race scheduled for 11:00. The starting line was packed, but we squeezed in on the far right side of it. 

 

At 11:00, the gun went off. It was extremely hot at this time, the sun was blazing, and all the clouds had disappeared.The first half mile was straight down hill followed by a big up hill climb. My coach wanted me to get a good starting mile and use the beginning downhill to my advantage, which I did. Approaching the mile, I remember hearing the roaring sound of cheers from the crowd. We had come from running in the woods and seeing no one at all, to a huge crowd cheering us on, which was exciting and encouraging to run by. Following the mile marker, it was just me, my competitors, and the course, which I like. I like the surrounding like this because you can just run your race and focus on what you need to do. Still, coaches were popping out of nowhere in the most random places, yelling splits and encouraging the runners. The end of the race is a 200 meter uphill stretch which was really fun and challenging to finish on. When I finished the race, I was drenched with sweat from the heat. The first thing I did when I got out of the chute was grab some water and gather up with my teammates. We all congratulated each other, but were worn out and off of our times from the previous week. The heat had definitely gotten to us. 

 

 

 

After, my teammates and I traded our spikes for our running shoes and went for a cool down run before gathering for a quick team meeting to discuss the race. The week before, we played a game of football after the race against Ridgeland High School and scheduled a rematch for this weekend. We were going to go meet up with them, but most of us had to get back to Hammond, so we didn't play. We all went to Chick-fil-A after the meet and headed back to Hammond to rest up and get ready for the practice week that lay ahead of us.

 

 

 

<p> If you would be interested in keeping a travel journal, please write to <a href="mailto:pat@louisianarunning.com">pat@louisianarunning.com</a>.&nbsp;</p>