As we start to come close to wrapping up the cross country season, we begin to reflect back on the hearts of the athletes. We asked Gabriel Rodriguez (Senior), Luna Garcia (Junior), and Samantha Trongnetrpunya (Junior) about their love of running, who has inspired them, and why they do the sport.
What inspired you to start running?
For some, running starts from a young age. Rodriguez states “I’ve been running since middle school and nothing really inspired me to run, I was just kind of put into it but once I started running it was the determination to put into it and the hard work and I always love to push myself past my limits.” Similarly, Trongnetrpunya adds “When I was younger I always liked running, I never took it seriously but then in junior high my friends wanted to do the La Mesa team so then I started to enjoy running more with them so then I joined in high school.” And for others, it may be family that lights up the spark, Garcia expresses “My cousin inspired me to start running, she was the only other one in my family who started running.”
Is there anyone in particular who inspires you to keep running?
Sometimes motivation may be brought up due to family, Rodriguez reveals “Me personally, it would be my two sisters, they’re both in the military and we’ve all come from a hard past so I strive to be as strong as they are.” Trongnetrpunya also has family as her motivation, “For me I think it would be my grandma because she always likes being active and she always tells me “Exercise is good” so running is a big thing for me.” Many also use themselves as motivation to strive for more, Garcia announces “ I would say myself, there’s not really anyone that inspires me that much besides myself to keep running.”
What does a typical practice routine look like?
Now aside from inspirations we begin to look into the practices, Rodriguez explains “We get out here at 2, start practice at 2:10, do a couple warm up laps, do drills and then usually on easy days we go out for a long run towards Target which is around 30-40 minutes sometimes an hour of just pure running and on workout days it’s usually more track oriented and sometimes we’ll go out into hills and on those days we typically push ourselves to our limits.” Trongnetrpunya and Garcia continue adding on with “We do two warm up laps and then we start drills and then usually our coaches will tell us what to do for the day and we’ll go out and do it and then when we’re done doing our workouts or runs we’ll come back and do strength, stretch and then go home.”
We also interviewed Coach Wes Hinson about his thoughts on this season so far, “This season has been a positive season, we’ve seen a lot of big improvements on the runners, they’re progressing well and it’s going to be fun to see where they end up at the end of the season!” It seems that cross country has a lot in store for them! Keep up the great work Grizzlies!