Griffin Allaire, a senior at Wells high school, he finished third in the Class B State XC meet a year ago.
Trust in your training
Hey everyone, my
name is Griffin Allaire. I'm a senior at Wells High School, and I'll be writing
for Milesplit this XC season. First, let me tell you a little bit about
myself, especially since many of you may not have met me. I love hiking.
I have been lucky enough to do some traveling around the country and
have hiked in some really spectacular places. My favorite so far has
been the Grand Canyon, which was unbelievable. There's nothing I can say
that'll do it justice. I strongly recommend that you try to visit there
at some point in your lifetime. I have three siblings. I also have two
dogs, Mackinac and Ottawa. Their favorite thing to do is steal food off
of our counter-top.
As we are either coming up
on our first races of the season this week or have already had the first
races, I'd like to share an insight that took me many years of running
to understand and pick up on. I'm one of those kids who likes to get out
fast and run from the front. This strategy can be good if you are
running for time and need to push the pace of the race, but in the
bigger races and championship races this strategy can backfire if your
not careful. You need to have confidence and be able to trust your
training. You don't always have to run hard from the start of every
race. Having the confidence to stay back and wait for others to make the
first move and expend their energy can be a better strategy in some
races. Before I found this confidence and trust in my training I didn't
always have the patience to be able to hang back and wait for the right
time to go. Without that patience and confidence in yourself, it's very
hard to run at your best.
Every race is
different and you need to adapt your strategy within the race to find
the best one to achieve your goals. Having patience and trust in your
training and in yourself is essential to be able to run at your best.
This is key in reaching a certain goal you've made for yourself whether
it be a specific time or a place within a particular race. It will
certainly help you in all of your races this season. If you don't reach
that goal or time right away in these first few races, try to stay
positive because being down on yourself won't help in anyway for
reaching your goals.
Good luck to everybody this season and I'll talk to y'all again in two weeks.
Griffin
