On November 2nd, West Morris Central athletes Lucas Rowland, Ryan Faulkner, Xavier Buoye, Adriano Passaro, Bryan Dillion, Lukas Wolinski and Luke Gillen represented the Wolfpack at the NJSIAA North II Group 2 State Sectional Championship. The meet was hosted at Central Park, Morris Country. The team placed 5th overall in the championship.
The Pack will advance to the Group 2 State Championship hosted at Holmdel Park on November 9th. Holmdel is not an easy course. There is a large bowl that athletes must descend into and fight the hill on the way back up.
Although this will be a challenge, The team has been training hard since the summer. “The varsity boys have run over 3,000 total minutes, which is about two and a half days of running, Just throughout the 11 weeks of training” Coach Johnson, the head varsity coach for boys cross country at Central, said. The boys have done a variety of workouts to prepare for the championship season including tempo runs which build endurance by running at a moderate to difficult pace and 5k specific speed work. Lucas Rowland, senior captain stated “The hardest workout that we did was where we had to run at our race pace.” The team would repeat their race pace for varying distances to build speed. Although this was the hardest workout, Rowland thinks it was also the workout that paid off the most.
During championship season, the intensity is decreased and the difficult workouts can be put to good use. Johnson sums this up into six words: “The hay is in the barn is really a celebration of all the hard work that’s gone on in the past 11 weeks before the race.” Johnson and his team will continue to carry this with them through championship season to remind themselves that the hard work is done and it’s time to take advantage of it during the championship season.
Although the wolfpack is prepared for the rest of championship season physically, Johnson stresses the importance of continuing to prepare mentally. Johnson explained the importance of going into a race with a strategy to conquer the last 1000 meters. Before every race coach Johnson and Rowland give their team a speech. Coach Johnson tells his athletes how they should handle the race physically and what pace they should run at while Rowland works on preparing his athletes mentally for the challenge ahead. This unique combination is part of why central has had much success this season. Johnson tells his team “be comfortable with being uncomfortable…accept that you’re in a difficult situation and find a way to navigate that situation.” In the Group 2 State Championship Rowland is going to continue to prepare with mental and physical strategies but at the end of the day his plan is quite simple. Rowland says “I’m just going to run hard, that’s all.”
