Tyler White is a senior at Orono High School, he finished 14th in the Class C State meet last fall. White is the 5th fastest returner in 2012, he is coming off a string outdoor season that saw him finish 4th in the outdoor 3200m 10:06.21. Follow Tyler in his journey this fall on the trails.
Hello! So I’ll start by introducing myself. I’m going to be a senior at Orono High School this fall and this will be only my second season of cross country, and it should be an exciting one. As a team there is a good chance we will be in the mix contending for a state title, and to get started on that task we have a couple of summer runs a week that are a lot of fun but also keep some people’s legs moving over the summer. I personally made a huge mistake underestimating the difficulty of cross country last year and only ran about five times over the summer which set me up for an injury that put me out for the first couple weeks of last season. I have learned that to be a successful cross country runner you really have fight the urge to be lazy and hit the roads and trails, which for me this summer has been no problem due to several different running events planned throughout July.
I decided in late outdoor that I would join a friend and teammates family that annually runs the L.L Bean 10k on the fourth of July. I didn’t really know how to set a goal
for this distance or how to train for it because I had never raced anything longer than a 5k before, so that was a learning experience. The two weeks before the race I just tried to log about 25 miles each week, and worked in some hills as well. So the morning of the race we woke up at 4 AM and got ready to depart to Freeport for 7:30. I have never been to a race as big as this, so it was really cool being on the start line and recognizing some faces from the running community. My goal coming in was to run a sub-38 minute race and despite my lackluster training I was able to achieve that with a 37:40.
The next event on my schedule was an Orono High School fundraising event titled “Larry’s Run”. It is a four day run across the state of Maine starting just above Jackman and finishing in about Eastport. The event is structured so there is about 10 runners and each runner hands the baton off after running a mile, and the cycle repeats until the daily mileage goal of about 65 is reached. It is a great experience and helps achieve a huge long term goal of getting the Orono schools a new all weather turf/track and field facility. “Larry” (from the title) was an Orono boys soccer, hockey, and baseball coach who passed away a couple of years ago due to pancreatic cancer and this was an event that he had wanted to do for awhile. After the 
first two days of that (about 14-15 miles), a female teammate who had also done Larry’s Run , and I trucked off to Acadian Running Camp.
This was my first time going to the camp and due to having a relatively small team, I was super excited to have a ton of people to run with. I ran about 30 miles at the camp, which put me at about 45 miles in 6 days, something that I have never even come close to doing in my life and my body feels it! I will probably take the next couple of days off and then I have a 5k in Bucksport planned for Saturday, then preseason is right around the corner. This summer has absolutely flown by and I’m sure everyone is as excited as I am to get the season underway, so goodluck with the rest of your summer training and any road races!
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