Milesplit Arizona Cross Country Journals
Tommy Williams returns for his final track season as one of the top milers in Arizona with a PR of 4;22.53 in the mile and a 4:21.10 in the 1600. He is also the #2 returner in the 800 with a time of 1:54.65. Williams was part of the Brophy team traveling to Oregon for the Nike Outdoor Team Championships where he ran both the mile and the 800 in a 2 hour span. Keep checking back as Tommy journals about his final prep cross country season.
Tommy Williams
(Sr., Brophy College Prep)
Track Journal (March 10, 2011)
Hello fellow Milesplit readers!
%20(1).jpg)
I hope that everyone is doing well as track season has begun once again and things are starting to heat up. I was recently asked by the awesome Margot Kelly to write several journals during the 2011 track season. For all those who don’t know me, my name is Tommy Williams and I’m currently a senior at Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix, Arizona. For the time being, I will tell you a little more about myself and my running career.
I’m originally from Phoenix, and I’ve lived here all my life with the extended Williams family. I have three brothers, two are older and one is younger.
Previously to high school I had only run competitively several times, the longest was the PF Changs Rock n Roll Kids Mile when I was 12. I primarily played baseball, along with basketball and some tennis during the summer. I got my first taste of running when I would come out to my oldest brother’s dual meets for track and cross country. I thought that they were fairly interesting, but I never really appreciated the sport for all the hard work runners put into it.
Over the summer before freshman year, I decided that I would start running a bit and try my hand at cross country. I did a low amount of slow miles, so I was in better shape than most when official practices began. Freshman cross country was an exciting experience, but I was nowhere near the level of the varsity runners on the Brophy team. Freshman track was a lot better for me because I really excelled. Unfortunately, I grew about 6 inches in several months so knee pains kept me off the track for most of the season. It ended on a positive note, because I ran a 4:51 in the 1600 at the Freshman Showcase which was a really positive experience for me.
Sophomore year was a little more erratic; it had a lot of ups and downs. Cross country went fairly well because I had more success and ended up being Brophy’s fifth man in several important meets. I didn’t do anything spectacular, but I was slowly improving. With regards to track, I did a lot better besting my PR in the 1600 by 14 seconds at the Chandler Rotary. As a wide-eyed sophomore, I was running better times but I didn’t have much race strategy other than going out and running as fast I could for the first lap and trying to hang on. The season ended on a sour note because I ran poorly in the regional meet and failed to qualify for the state meet.
As junior year rolled around, I felt stronger and faster than ever. Even though I’m not a big fan of cross country, I was running faster and better than ever. Still overshadowed by my star teammates Will Firth and The Brock Ghelfi, the season went well. I ended up 34th at the Arizona State Meet which was a 90 second improvement. I really wanted to have done better, but I was fairly satisfied. For me, the 2010 track season was a really big breakout year for me. I was able to use the improvement from the cross country season and transition that over to the track. I came in with really high hopes and after the first few meets, I knew that it was going to be a great season. Will and I were able to push each other and even though he beat me in most races I thrived off the extra competition. Better race strategies and harder workouts were really key the drastic improvements. Under the tutelage of my coach Mike Keahon, I was able to reach the next level and have a lot of success. I won the 1600 at the state meet, I was third in the 3200 and I broke Coach Keahon’s 37 year old 800 record at the Meet of Champions. Without the help of Coach Keahon, Will, and others in my life I would have a much harder time achieving that level of success.
Over the summer, the Brophy track team qualified for Nike Track Nationals and we got to compete up at the University of Oregon with other top teams across the countries. Nike did an awesome job with that meet, and it was so awesome to run at Hayward Field and then watch the Prefontaine Classic the next day. It’s one of those things that I’m going to remember for a long time, and I’m hoping that we qualify to go during the 2011 track season.
After taking a few weeks off, I began running again on summer vacation. I had the luxury of spending a month in Coronado, California where the weather is perfect in the month of July. I got in a ton of quality basework, running miles a lot faster than usual. Will came up for a week and when we weren’t training we were chilling large. It was draining to run twice a day, but it really made us a lot tougher before the season began. It definitely paid dividends as the season began, and I started off really strong with a 14:50 3 mile time trial thanks to the expert pacing of Alex Mason. The rest of cross country went fairly well, but not as I had initially expected. Long distance isn’t exactly my forte, but I hung in there and was the number 2 runner on the team as Will won almost every race that season. The state meet didn’t go as well as I hoped individually, and our team results could have been better. I was feeling a bit burnt out so I didn’t want to extend my season by running Nike Southwest or Footlocker West.
I took a three week break and started building up my base mileage up in December. So far training has been going great and I’ve only done a few low key meets. I was able to run a 1:56 split in the 4x8 in a dual meet versus Corona and based off the rest of the workouts we’ve been doing, this track season is shaping up nicely.
I hope this journal gives you a bit more insight into the life of Tommy Williams, and I will keep you posted on the latest news.
Keep it classy Arizona,
Tommy