Travel Journal: John Thomas of Baton Rouge High

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

 

This past week was my first full week in over a month of practice. I’ve been out dealing with a tweaked hamstring and problems in both my knees. My doctor said it is due to me being flat footed, which causes the impact when I run to go directly to my knees.  Overall it was a good week of practice I got some speed work in and was about to build my base back up to where I knew I would be able to run without dying.  

Friday we had our annual fall fair, which is how we end our spirit week. This was a fun event that helped the nerves that I had towards Saturday calm down. After school we had a light practice which consisted of us running 4 miles at around 6:00-6:20 for each mile.  After that we had a team meeting where Coach Antoine and I discussed the goals for this weekend.  We were heading to Lafayette to participate in the St. Thomas Moore Invitational. This was our first time running at this course and we were all both excited and nervous for the next day. We wanted to go into this meet and win it, even with two of our top seven not being there with us, Leo (Frilot) has been out with a foot injury for the past 3 weeks , and Jackie (Clayton),  with personal matters.  We knew that with those two being out that we would all have to run our hearts out, and that some of ours guys would really have to step up.  I told the guys that we had to go to this meet with confidence in ourselves and knowing that we could come out on top. Coach told us we needed to be at the school for 6:30, so we could be at the meet on time in order to go over the course. 

 

I woke up at 4:30 race day morning to the sound of Roar by Katy Perry, blasting through my iPhone. I quickly woke up did my morning stretches, got dressed, grab a poptart and a smoothie and made me way over to the school. Since it was only the varsity team traveling this week we all piled into the SUV and drove to Lafayette with coaches smooth jazz calming us down. You could basically feel the nerves in the air.  When we finally arrived in Lafayette, we unloaded the SUV and searched for a spot. After we found our spot we grabbed a map and headed out to run the course. The first mile consisted of only one steep hill at about the 1000 mark. This isn’t what the team was used to, since highland road is where we run most of our meets. Highland is known for those hills that make you want to go crying to your mom. But hey we weren’t complaining. After we were done running the course we all knew that this was going to be a fast race for use and a day full of PR’s. We went back to the team area did our stretches, hydrated, and before you know it we were putting on our spikes. It was race time! 

We all jogged over to the starting line, did some strides, and got into our time circle and prayed. We were ready to run! Kevin Castille gathered all the runners and gave us some last minute details about the race and the course.  I was so ready for the gun to go off and when it finally did I sprinted out the try to get in good position. I was able to position myself in the top 20 where I hope to stay and maybe move up after the mile mark. Ryan Burrell, one of our guys, took over at about the 800 mark and never looked back. I was about 50 meters behind him at the mile mark when coach yelled out 5:41 as my mile split. I was kind of shocked to hear that time since for one I’m not up to my true fitness level yet and since I felt so relaxed. Coach always tells us to push the second mile since that’s where nobody wants to work and that’s exactly what I did. I passed up about 5 people and was able to position myself in the top 10. But going up the hill that lead us out the woods my knee popped and it began to hurt really badly. But I told myself to push through I had worked too hard to give up this late in the race and “Find My Strong.” , this has been our times anthem ever since we all got matching tattoos at  the Battlefield Meet in  port Hudson with these words on them. I pushed the pain out of my mind and focused on finishing the race. I opened up my stride at about the 800 mark like I do in every race and gave it my all during the final stretch. I crossed the finish line in 17:59, a PR this season of 24 seconds. I was so proud of this time due to the fact that I haven’t been able to practice the way I needed to for an entire month. After the race I grabbed some water and two bags of ice and iced my knees, like I do after ever race. I swear I feel like an old person sometimes. 

After the race, we all went for a cool down and talked about the race and how we think. Two of our Varsity guys got PRs (Patrick Jefferson and I.) We packed up loaded the SUV and headed over to the awards ceremony. Our entire 7 finished in the top 30, with Joseph (Bourgeois) at 23rd and Jeremy (Wall) at 21st, and our top 5 were in the top 20 Jerahmeel (Wilson) was 16th, I was 14th, Patrick was 13th, Evan (Doomes) was 11th and Ryan won the race with a time of 16:51. This is the first time our scoring 5 have been so close together, with our 1-5 Split being 1:13. Team awards were being handed out next. Third place went to Barbe High School, which meant it was between Baton Rouge High and St. Thomas Moore. Your runner up with 48 points Baton Rouge High, the guy read. You could feel the joy in on our team fly away. We thought we had truly won this race.  But this year has been a year of great improvement for us we have been ranked since the first meet for the first time in 8 years. And our team is so young with me being the only junior, two seniors, and the 4 sophomores. Coach always tells us they we don’t understand how talent we are. That we never have full faith in ourselves and our abilities. But this meet made me realize that if I put my mind to it, and if we as a time put our mind to it were unstoppable. Because like they say “Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.”

Baton Rouge High coming in second to St. Thomas Moore taught us what we needed to do in order to become a stronger team. You have to never stop believing in yourself because there are people out there who believe in you.  Now it’s on to Metro and State and to finally show Louisiana that were a force to be reckoned with. 

One Speed: Fast One Goal: Win One Way: together This is the year we make it count

 

<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>