– Ben Dejarnette is a senior distance runner for the Atlee Raiders,
excelling in the fall, winter and spring seasons. He is set to run for a major
college or university after his 2008 graduation and is also a DigitalSports
intern. His blog will appear here consistently.
It’s been a busy two months since my cross country season ended with a thud at Footlocker South.
On the running front, I took a long hiatus from competition to focus on my training. It was a long, rather boring spell of repetitive high-mileage weeks, but my first race seemed to be a sign that my fitness is progressing according to plan.
I used a strong kick in the last 550m to win the mile at the Virginia Tech Invitational with a personal-best 4:15.64. Next up is a 3200m race at the St. Christopher’s Invitational this Saturday.
It’s definitely an exciting time to be a distance runner in the state of Virginia, as we seem to be establishing ourselves as the deepest group in the country.
A writer from Dyestat.com interviewed me after my race at Tech and agreed that so far this track season, VA has proven it is the state to beat.
To give a little perspective, as of this past weekend, three of the country’s four fastest 3200m times belonged to Virginians. As outstanding as that is, Andrew Colley, Alex Ott and I still have not even run that event this season.
Colley broke the state meet course record in cross country this fall, Ott was a Footlocker Nationals finalist, and I consider the 3200 my best event. It will be exciting to see how everything plays out this winter and spring.
As for my college search, I took visits to William & Mary and the University of Oregon, both of which I loved. The decision was incredibly difficult, but in the end I decided I want to be a Duck!
I just couldn’t turn down the chance to spend the next four years training and living in Track Town, USA.
Go Ducks!!!
Ben D.
Previous entries
– Nov. 3
– Oct. 28
– Oct. 19
– Oct. 7
– Sept. 28
– Sept. 23
– Sept. 14
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