HS Bloggers: Brittany Bowman Camden Hill HS



Hey everyone!


For those who don't know me, I'm Brittany Bowman, a rising junior at Camden Hills Regional High School. I've run cross country since middle school and track in high school. I am especially looking forward to this cross country season to not only see what I can do individually, but also as a team. Last year the team and I had a breakthrough season, and the hope is to build upon last year.

In preparation, I am trying to make the most of the summer days. Summer is interesting in the way that so much can happen in those couple of months. With all the extra freedom one can make themselves faster or take everything easy.

Although my summer doesn't include local races strictly against high school runners from Maine, I still find competition; during the summer I am my own competitor. People have told me before “your greatest competitor in life is yourself” and I find that especially evident during the summer. I spend summer training independently, for the most part, but I enjoy it because it is the appropriate time to focus not on what other people around the state run, but rather myself.

The most obvious part of summer running that I'm most competitive with myself is the one road race I run each summer, the Falmouth Road Race (Massachusetts). The Falmouth Road Race, or known as by some “America's Greatest Road Race”, is a beautiful 7.1 mile race along the shore of Cape Cod (well, for a few of the miles) run by more than 10,000 each August. This will be my eighth year running this race (I started when I was just eight), and each year I become more competitive and I now think of summer as my “Falmouth season”.

For the first few years in elementary school, I did not train for this race except for a three miler, if even, the day before the car ride to Cape Cod, a typical training idea for an eight-year-old. After a couple years of that nonsense, I naturally ran closer to an hour. That was when the competitiveness clicked and I decided to break the hour barrier. So, the following summer I trained. And consequently, I broke an hour.

I continued striving to better my time from the previous year and since I have been successful in that sense. But, I also developed the dream of winning my age group. I never won the 7-14 age group (even though I did come close with a 2nd place finish when I was 14). However, that is a difficult goal because each year the field is different, so I don't know my competition until the race is completed and results are posted. Sure while glancing through the race lottery results in June I can see who was selected to run, but those people are foreigners to me.

The Falmouth Road Race is different from a cross country race because in cross country I am far more knowledgeable. I am able to have a rough idea of the finish, and I can pace behind or in front of the competitors. But, during the summer leading into August, when I train for the Falmouth Road Race, it's hard to train to beat that “unknown” runner in my age group (or even guess what time to run to win). The only person I can train to beat is myself.

I find this approach valuable and important. As cross country comes along, even though winning a race or beating someone is a great, essential goal and often times I thrive off such ideas, for me, it is always helpful to keep self-competitiveness in the back of the mind. Ultimately, one can never predict what a competitor will run, but what one can control is their own race, and come August, through my eyes, that will be proven once again by the Falmouth Road Race.

 

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