Feb. 14, 2007
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Blossom is now in the last part of her senior year at Santa Clara having participated in both cross country and track in all three previous years. She has represented Santa Clara well, both on the race course and off, serving as the secretary for the Student-Athlete Advisory Council here at Santa Clara, as well as being Santa Clara's representative for the WCC & NCAA student-athlete groups. |
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Senior
Contagion
Sunday, April 8th, 2007, 8:06 p.m.
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| The 5k-ers (Danielle, Veronica, Whitney and me) with our "special" braids. |
Tom loves to say that "running fast is contagious" and it looks like our team is starting to catch the bug! Veronica just set school records in the 1500 and 5k, Adriane and Shanthi are on fire, Danielle is rocking the steeple, and Whitney, Annie, and Swiiigs have been consistently solid. Plus our sprinters! This is what it's all about and he is right, the excitement does spread.
The Johnny Mathis Invitational was yesterday and it's a race that we traditionally run well at. Yesterday proved to be no exception. The guys also did great, with Mike Delaurenti setting a school record in the 5k and AJ having a huge PR there as well. We also had extra fan support from old teammates, alumni, and the Bronco Bench Foundation. It really helps having people out there! It was also Danielle's birthday so there was cake and cookies for celebration.
Everybody stayed here for Easter, so we had a very teamy holiday. We walked to Cozy for brunch and made sure that this year they actually brought us the stewed prunes we ordered!! The omelets there are massive so I definitely ended up having that again for dinner today. After Cozy we met at the Mission Garden where we had an Easter egg hunt! Noelle and Anna organized the shenanigans and fun was had by all.
Now it is just back to work, and there is a lot I have to do. It's only one week into the quarter yet I already feel swamped! Hooray. But I am actually really excited for this quarter - I am taking Neurobiology, Psychology of Women, and more O-Chem. I get to work on chick embryos in Neuro. lab! Last quarter actually turned out really well for me, so hopefully I can continue that momentum. Spring quarter always brings distractions, but I think I'll be able to balance everything.
Now all I need to do is fix my Achilles, stop getting sick, stop head casing, and join my teammates in running fast...that is the one bug I would like to catch!
Finals Week...
Monday, March 20th, 2007, 10:02 p.m.
It's finals week so I am writing a quick hello in procrastination! Right now I am delaying the composition of a psychology paper and the studying of O-Chem. Tomorrow morning I think I am going to attempt a run...I've been dealing with achilles tendonitis since the Pepperdine meet, UGH, and despite the weather I have to say that I am very, very sick of the pool. That is all.
Blossom
WCC Challenge Cup
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007, 11:21 a.m.
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| Brittany, Whitney, me and Carrie after our amazing 4x4 |
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| Me and my housemates at the Senior Prent Dinner Dance |
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| Me and my mom before the dance |
A lot has happened since I last wrote! I'll give you the running update first, and the rest-of-life update second.
We had our first meet, finally! I had been looking forward to the WCC Challenge Cup at Pepperdine since I found out about it a couple months ago. The team rented a bus (which we worked very hard at selling parking permits to get!) and drove down to Southern California on Friday. I was at home, since Pepperdine is really close to my dad's house in Thousand Oaks and our hotel was about 5 minutes away from my mom's house in Westchester. My grandparents were in town from Ohio, so they got to watch me run, too! I think we were all still a bit rusty since it's so early in the season - we've barely started real speed work - but overall I think the meet was a positive starting point for the spring. I probably had one of the worst races of any of the girls, but then I followed it up with a "PR" in the 400 during the 4x4. Ha!! Tom threw me in it for workout purposes, but really, I don't think my 400 speed could score in a high school JV race. But things will get better - for me, and for everyone. Our workouts have been going well and more and more people are getting healthy, so things are getting more positive by the day. Exciting!
Life outside of running... well, last weekend was the Senior Parent Dinner Dance and it was a TON of fun. My mom and her husband came up, and most of my housemate's parents came, too. They have decided that my mom and I are basically twins, since we both know how to attack a box of Sees Candy, own the same Halloween leggings from the kids section at Target (and we didn't know that the other had bought them), and both have incredible dance moves (ha!). Yesterday I submitted a resume for a summer internship and I am already getting butterflies every time my phone rings. Wish me luck in getting an interview for it!! Other than that I am just immersing myself in O-Chem and working on writing a Psyc. manuscript (it got approved for publication!) with one of my classmates.
That is all! I must get back to work so that I get some sleep tonight!
Catch ya later...
Blossom
Track Season Already?
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007, 2:31 p.m.
Track season already?! I can't believe it's that time of the year, but lucky for you it means you get to start reading more of my wonderful blogs again :)
Training for me has been going pretty well. I have had a few weeks in a row of mileage in the mid 60s and I'm really happy about that since that's usually when I start to break down and get hurt. But, besides a few minor bumps in the road, I am healthy and better stay that way!! We have had a small group training healthily and consistently all Winter and are very excited because a lot of people are on the comeback from fall injuries - most of them should definitely still have a solid and full season! We have also been busy hosting a lot of recruits which is always fun. I am really excited for our first meet at Pepperdine... it will be like going home for me. And hopefully in the future that meet will expand into a true WCC track championship...!
Life outside of running has been keeping me very busy. My mom is coming up for Parent's Weekend on Saturday and we are going to the Senior Dinner-Dance along with a lot of my housemates and their parents. It should be fun. Last week was midterms and thankfully I survived - I already found out how my O-Chem one went and I did surprisingly well! I am liking O-Chem more and more as the year progresses. Last Friday I had the team over in celebration of National Pancake Week and we had a huge feast of eggs and pancakes with more toppings than you can imagine. In celebration of Valentine's Day tomorrow my housemates and I are going to stay in and order pizza. Woo! And in my "spare" time I have been scrambling to figure out what to do this summer - I am torn between applying for the Donovan Fellowship, taking an MCAT class, and getting an internship doing something in the biomedical sciences. (And of course I'll be training hard for my final cross country season!) I am also helping coordinate Celebrate Every Body Week and will be doing a presentation on stress eating with Shannon Bell as part of the week's activities.
It's appearing that I write as much as I talk, so I'll turn myself off and leave you with a would-you-rather brought to you by my housemate (and SCU Water Polo player!), Kellie Dunn - Would you rather be my Valentine or watch me run my time trial at the Los Gatos All-Comers on Saturday morning? Hey...you could make my week and do both! :)
Blossom
Ahh! Conference Weekend!
Monday, October 30th, 2006, 11:02 a.m.
The night before the race Jesse and I had the rest of the non-running teamies over our house to make signs to cheer with at the race. Afterwards, Adri, Noelle, Aly, Katie, Becky, Jay, alumni JP Thyken, and I drove to Crystal Springs to spend the night at the course. Needless to say, I slept for about 3 hours but it was funny waking up and seeing everything get set up. We were all lying behind the bushes wondering if we were visible before we realized that it was quite obvious we were.
The races were amazing to watch. While it was really disappointing not to run, the only good thing that came of it was that I got to watch my incredible teammates. The guys took 3rd, led by Chris Gumbs and a solid pack not too far behind him. The girls got 4th, and while we are not at all satisfied with that performance, they hung tough. And trust me - it'll be different in two weeks at regionals. We are a lot better than that and will show it.
Saturday night was time for celebration and non-running festivities. Shannon's family took our house out to a really nice dinner at California Café (thanks so much!!) and afterwards we went out for an (early) Halloween. Adri, Whit, Kiley (who came from Seattle to watch the race!) and I dressed as the Incredibles...and I must say - we looked pretty incredible. I used Sunday to catch up on much needed sleep and take care of little "errands" that had been building up, such as grocery shopping and...traffic school. Apparently I got caught speeding on my drive down to LA this summer and just realized I needed to complete traffic school by the 2nd. Whoops.
So all that brings me to right now - Monday night. It's always a letdown after WCCs to get back to school and the grind of it all. Last week Justin Muskivitch alerted me to the fact that I didn't end the last blog with a would-you-rather, so I made sure to remember this time. Would you rather be able to fly or travel through time?
Until next time...
Been a Long Time
Tuesday, October 24, 2006, 11:58 a.m.
Sorry I haven't written in so long! So here's the update:
This Saturday is the WCC Championships at Crystal Springs in Belmont and we are REALLY excited. It is wide open on the girls side and we have a big chance of winning - and we plan on doing so. We are deeper than ever before and I know that the girls running are going to do amazing and represent SCU well. The last race where the whole team ran together was our own invitational at Baylands Park, and we saw tons of PRs and a lot of girls made huge breakthroughs giving us the strength we need for the postseason. This past Saturday Adri, Veronica, Katie, Becky, and I ran our final race of the season and we all ran solidly on a slightly long course. On Thursday Tom is having the team over to his house for his annual pre-conference dinner and we are all excited for that since it is always AMAZING. Probably the only thing that would excite a runner more than conference at this time of the season is a good home cooked meal.
So besides running I guess I have been pretty busy evading the flu that everyone I know seems to have. And school is a given - I think it always makes me tired and busy. Thinking about grad school and what to do after SCU freaks me out a bit, but I'm also excited because I might be filling out applications this June. Other than that I can't wait to go home for Thanksgiving, though its still awhile away. And for now I'm off to O-Chem lab - every Tuesday I just hope I don't break or blow things up. Bye for now!
Tough Week
Sunday, October 8, 2006, 9:48 p.m.
If you want a glimpse into the life of a Santa Clara student-athlete, then the fourth week of the quarter paints the perfect picture. We'll see if I'm alive next Sunday, after a midterm, two quizzes, two projects, and a big and very important race.
This week wasn't too interesting...possibly the calm before the storm. We had great workouts as a team all week. On Tuesday was our best tempo workout this season, Thursday I heard everyone ran freakishly fast intervals (I didn't run because I strained my soleus), and Saturday we did great threshold repeats. I am exhausted right now because I was up at 5:40 because we met at 6:15 to work the San Jose Rock n' Roll Half Marathon. Despite getting up so early, it was actually kind of fun because we got to see Tom's son, JT, run along with alumni Katie Hansen and a lot of other people we knew (including classmates, professors, chiropractor). Possibly the highlight of the excursion, though, was driving the big athletic truck! For those of you that don't know, I am only 5'1 and have super short legs. The only reason I was able to reach the pedals is because I was wearing sandals that are about (I admit) 3 inches tall...and even then it was a struggle.
Anyways...that's it. Would you rather be able to choose the color of the sky every day or ...watch us run next Saturday at Baylands Park in Sunnyvale?? I know that's not a very hard question, so I expect everyone to be there cheering us on at our own invitational! It's gonna be a good one!
Notre Dame
Sunday, October 1, 2006, 8:48 p.m.
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| The Santa Clara cross country team at the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago, Ill. |
Well, writing this little blog is the perfect way to delay my studying some more! We got back from Notre Dame last night and between travel and running long this morning I am pretty tired and have tons to do. But before I get to studying, here's a recap of the week:
We had a great workout of repeat 800s on Tuesday that got everyone excited and feeling ready to roll for the impending weekend races. The Notre Dame group met at 5am on Thursday to catch an early flight into Chicago. After a long and traffic-ridden drive to South Bend, we checked into our hotel, ran the course, and had a late dinner. The race was Friday at 2:00, which gave us plenty of time to sleep in and relax beforehand. Our first 4 girls ran really strong and got us in the mix with the top teams, but we faltered at 5, 6, and 7. Our plan had been to run as a pack, but we never found each other. That's something to work on for sure, because regionals will be even more crowded on a course with narrower paths, which will definitely make it more challenging to stick together. The girls ended up 7th out of 24 teams and the guys finished 16th out of 25.
After the race we drove back to Chicago and had dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant that one of our team's alumni, John Hinman, made us reservations at. We also saw his apartment and walked along Michigan Avenue a little bit. The next morning we had a great run along Lake Michigan and then met John and another alumni, Tara Rooney, for some Chicago pizza for lunch. It is really so awesome to see alumni and family at every meet we go to. Before we flew back home we did the tourist thing and went to the top of the Sears Tower which was pretty cool. The whole trip was really fun and even waiting at the airport in Chicago wasn't boring, as we were eagerly awaiting the results from the Stanford racers (who did freaking amazing) and watched Anna dress up in Koch's clothes.
Running pretty much took up most of my week and nothing too interesting happened with school. It was nice to have a 3-day week, though. I have to make up two quizzes and a discussion tomorrow, so it's going to be a really busy day.
First Week Is Over Already
Saturday, September 23, 2006, 4:35 p.m.
Wow! I can't believe that the first week of school is already over. Time seems to be flying by faster than ever. Senior year is upon me, the Cross Country season is almost half over...and yet, I feel like I am just getting started with it all.
I was already pretty busy this week. I am taking O-Chem, Bio 24 (cell bio/genetics), and Developmental Psychology. I am so scared for O-Chem that I have been going to two sections of the class...yes, I am a huge nerd...but I think everyone already knows that. I am really excited for the psychology class, though. I'm doing a group project on genetic counseling and will eventually have to go observe kids at Toys R' Us! I'm also really excited because I will be helping my psyc. professor with her research on student alcohol and drug use. Last Sunday I helped distribute and administer questionnaires to all the freshmen, and every week I will be helping with data entry and eventually designing something of my own to study.
It was kind of a rough week of training for me. I think the stress of starting school, along with higher mileage than we have run the past four weeks really caught up with me. I didn't race this weekend, but some of our girls did, including freshman Adrianne Beach who won and set a course record! On Thursday we had a teamie night at the cross house. A lot of people brought snacks and we decorated (rainbow!) T-shirts and watched Grey's Anatomy. My shirt is kind of ugly, but I must say that with her gorilla and dinosaur I think Whitney wins for most artistic. Next weekend some of us go to Stanford and others to Notre Dame. Both are really big and exciting races and we should do really well. We are strong up front and the deepest we've ever been--it is sooo exciting!!!
Anyways I think I have rambled on enough at this point. I will leave you with one thing to ponder, though, until I write again next week: Would you rather only be able to eat chocolate chip cookies for the rest of your life or cookies and cream ice cream?
