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 again!
I wanted to start by congratulating all of the high school runners who competed in the Beach to Beacon, there were a lot of fast times and it was fun to read through the results. For me, the last 2 weeks have been extremely boring on the running side of things due to a minor tweak in both of my knees. I believe that the issue is an overuse type of injury because I have run a lot more miles than my body has ever been used to. Last entry I mentioned that I had an upcoming 5k in Bucksport, and that went very well.
I was planning on running this race with a couple of teammates and they both ended up cancelling on me, but luckily I had my mom and step-dad to run with. My goal coming into this race was to run sub-17 
and get a time I was happy with because I felt like I was in pretty good shape, and maybe a win based on the past years results. We got to the race a pretty early and the first thing I saw was Adam Goode, so I stopped worrying about place. I had taken two days off before this race due to the high intensity I had done in the past six days. My left knee was absolutely killing me both rest days, and sure enough it didn't let up when I started to warm up. This really freaked me out because since outdoor ended I knew I could run under 17 minutes and I was getting really antsy to do so. Every step I took, the pain got sharper and sharper and I couldn't run for more than two minutes at a time. After ten minutes of stop and go, I changed shoes. I did a few accelerations, stretched a little bit and checked out the scene. After that, I changed shoes again. The pain was still there, and I was thinking I would just run alongside my mom but halfway through another ten minute run the pain magically went away. I decided that I was going to run hard, and I made my way to the line. There wasn't very many people at this race, but I think it was an event record with about 220-230 people. The course was an out and back with a solid amount of hills, but since it was an out and back every hill you went up you got to go down. I felt good in the beginning and ran with Alex Beals (who wasn't trying to run hard) and two older guys for a while but I was by myself by the time I got to around the mile. There weren't any visible mile markers so this made pacing by yourself pretty difficult. I felt really good the whole race except for right after the turnaround there was a gradual uphill. At about 13 minutes I started to pick it up but unfortunately I am absolutely horrible at following courses and directions and there were only a few volunteers that pointed where to go. The combination of that and not knowing where the finish was left me with about 100m to use a kick that I could have used over an 800. I finished in second place with a 17:11, which was a huge PR by nearly 30 seconds. I have only been running for about a year and a half so I still think there is room for large improvements with more experience. Overall I had no hard feelings about the race, seeming how I 
didn't even think that I would be able to run hard during warm up.
and get a time I was happy with because I felt like I was in pretty good shape, and maybe a win based on the past years results. We got to the race a pretty early and the first thing I saw was Adam Goode, so I stopped worrying about place. I had taken two days off before this race due to the high intensity I had done in the past six days. My left knee was absolutely killing me both rest days, and sure enough it didn't let up when I started to warm up. This really freaked me out because since outdoor ended I knew I could run under 17 minutes and I was getting really antsy to do so. Every step I took, the pain got sharper and sharper and I couldn't run for more than two minutes at a time. After ten minutes of stop and go, I changed shoes. I did a few accelerations, stretched a little bit and checked out the scene. After that, I changed shoes again. The pain was still there, and I was thinking I would just run alongside my mom but halfway through another ten minute run the pain magically went away. I decided that I was going to run hard, and I made my way to the line. There wasn't very many people at this race, but I think it was an event record with about 220-230 people. The course was an out and back with a solid amount of hills, but since it was an out and back every hill you went up you got to go down. I felt good in the beginning and ran with Alex Beals (who wasn't trying to run hard) and two older guys for a while but I was by myself by the time I got to around the mile. There weren't any visible mile markers so this made pacing by yourself pretty difficult. I felt really good the whole race except for right after the turnaround there was a gradual uphill. At about 13 minutes I started to pick it up but unfortunately I am absolutely horrible at following courses and directions and there were only a few volunteers that pointed where to go. The combination of that and not knowing where the finish was left me with about 100m to use a kick that I could have used over an 800. I finished in second place with a 17:11, which was a huge PR by nearly 30 seconds. I have only been running for about a year and a half so I still think there is room for large improvements with more experience. Overall I had no hard feelings about the race, seeming how I didn't even think that I would be able to run hard during warm up.
I decided that the best solution to getting rid of this pain was just to ice and take it easy until preseason. I ran about 2.5 miles Monday after the race, 4 miles Tuesday and a 1600m fartlek Wednesday. I have not run since then and I'm getting pretty excited for August 13th. I have been fortunate enough to be distracted with a family vacation to New York City, where I am actually writing this blog with a beautiful view of the New York skyline. I have done some minor tracking and I think we have walked about 20 miles in the past three days and we still have a day left. Once I get back to Orono it will be all energy for the USATF youth summer track meet which is Saturday in Brewer. It is cool getting a chance to see very good upcoming athletes and coaching some of the many Orono kids with several other high school teammates. The countdown for cross country is on, and with less than a week until preseason it seems like Milesplit articles are the only thing holding everyone over. So until next time, goodluck with preseason and I hope everyone is excited and prepared.
-Tyler
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