Bloomington High School North, Nikean, 2012, Page 170

Description:	With Caleb Anderson, TJ. Higgins,Buddy Jones, and Trip LukemeyerI wanna help the^PnrpPguys out thisyear. Our 4x1 consists of me and threefreshmen who all haveamazing potential.And our 4x4 is me,T.J., and two freshmen who have gota lot of potential aswell. We have a reallyyoung team. When Iwas younger, I had thelegends- Max Tuttle,Jason Waterman, DylanAnderson- to watchand learn from. I kindawant them to have arole model like them,so Im trying to do mybest everyday.Describe a typical practice. Describe your individual events.T.J. Higgins: We warm up. We do about a mile of normal jogging and then we get into our speed drills. We go hard in those. Andthen it depends on our event what we do after that. I do the 400 and the 800. Those are usually pretty tough workouts.Trip Lukemeyer: Im a sprinter.Buddy Jones: Im always with the sprinters. Usually its a lot more running than I wanna do, but youve gotta get it done anyways.-How do you det focused for a meet?Trip: A lot of times, people do it a couple of different ways. Theres mainly two types. Theres the people who like to get with otherpeople and you do a lot of drills with people, a lot of stretching. And also theres the loners, which is what I am. You put in the headphones and do drills by yourself. You go through your spiritual routine sometimes, like I always pray beforehand. It really just dependson the person.T.J.: Music definitely helps me get into the zone for meets. I mean, Ive been doing this for four years, but I still get nervousevery now and then. Every time I just think about all of the training and hard work I have put into this. It calms me down and I goout and race.Vhat are you hopind to acheve ths season?T.J.: As a team, it would be nice to send a couple of relays to state. Weve definitely got some individuals that could make it. Individually, I would like to have a solid year. I think Im really more focused on helping the younger guys cause I definitely see a lot of talentthat in four years, this team can be something Ive never seen, and be a state rated team.Caleb: Im definitely looking, team wise, to win conference. We came pretty close the past couple of years. I think its time we getthere. Individually, pretty much what T.J. said, just work on making the team better, and getting some good times.Buddy: I wanna help the younger guys out this year. Our 4x1 consists of me and three freshmen who all have amazing potential. Andour 4x4 is me, T.J., and two freshmen who have got a lot of potential as well. We have a really young team. When I was younger, I hadthe legends- Max Tuttle, Jason Waterman, Dylan Anderson- to watch and learn from. I kinda want them to have a role model like them,so Im trying to do my best everyday.-How do you bond as a team?Trip: As a team, we all hang out, and we like to have fun. We crack a lot of jokes. The coaches are really great about that. They like tohave us have fun, but they also know that we know when its time to get serious. And when its time to get serious, we go out and work. Ithink what brings us together is the pain that some of the practices feel. Its like a brotherhood going through all the pain together.Buddy: Like Trip said, we do go through a lot of crap together and it definitely makes us stronger. But when were at meets and the gungoes off, you know whos running and you cheer your teammate on, no matter who it is.Vhat is the most difficult part of competing for track?T.J.: The hardest thing is just racing against yourself. There s a lot of times when youre in a race and youre out in the middle ofnowhere. Theres the guy behind you whos a lap behind and the guy in front of you whos a lap ahead of you, and so youve gotta makea decision whether youre gonna try or not. The difficulty comes down to really working against yourself.Trip: As it goes tor sprints, it s all about perfection. A halt ot a second can be a huge difference. You always wanna train for perfection.You always have to give it your hardest, because if you dont, you know theres someone else out there thats going fast and going hard.Theyre either pulling ahead of you or about to come up on you. You never wanna have that. The worst thing is losing a race right at theend by a tenth of a second.Buddy: Some of these races, theyre only 11,12 seconds long. So if you do mess up, it does cost you.
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloomnorth/id/7332
Collection:	Bloomington High School North

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