New York is stock full of great distance runners and phenomenal teams, but one athlete to watch out for this fall is Tully High School sophomore Brooke Rauber, who finished sixth at Nike Cross Nationals as a freshman in 2017. She's won the last two Class D cross country championships in New York, was second at NXR New York a year ago and owns a personal best time of 17:47.00 at the 5K distance. Rauber is quickly forming a national profile, but in the meantime check out her weekly training as she prepares for the beginning of the season.
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WEEK 1 (July 22-28)
Sunday: 7 miles with Liverpool's girls, 4 x 200 Rep
My mom was roommates with the Liverpool girls coach in college and I spent a lot of time with them at NXN, so they let me do some training with them. We averaged 7:15 mile pace. It was pretty flat and fast with little wind. When I got home, I moved hay bales for the goats, so I guess that counts as lifting.
Monday: 8 miles at Green Lakes with Ashleigh--avoiding the rain
Ashleigh is one of my former teammates that now runs in college, and she makes for a great training partner. We began running together when I was in the seventh grade, and she has always been my favorite person to train with because runs go by so quickly when we talk and make jokes. We also have a habit of half-stepping each other, so before we know it we're really cruising along. We always laugh and blame the other person for the quick pace.
We started running across the beach when the speaker (at Green Lakes) told everyone to get off the sand because a storm was coming. We looked around to see that we were the only ones on the beach, so basically they were talking directly to us. We sprinted off the beach and changed our usual route. We went up a super long uphill, because we were already lost (for some reason we always end up getting lost together) and seemed to just keep running uphill. It's a good thing that we didn't end up jumping in the lake when we finished because it started to storm.
Tuesday: 5 miles at Labrador Pond, 4 x 200 rep on the booardwalk
I ran 6 miles with my team and my brother and it was all in the woods. The trail is narrow and hilly, but it's fun pounding each other on the hills and seeing who can hang. I wasn't wearing a watch, so I don't know the pace we were going, but it was a nice and steady run. We had to run 4 x 200 reps on the boardwalk afterward. It was curvy and slippery, so it was hard to get up to pace doing the 200s.
Wednesday: 8 miles at Coach Vanetta's house with Liverpool's girls, 5 x strides
Once again I ran with the Liverpool girls, since today was not a day my team trains together. It was a hilly run on the roads, but hills are my strong suit so I loved this run. Jenna was on vacation so the pace was a little more reserved than it usually is. We were going about 7:40 mile pace. The strides were on grass and about 100 meters long.
Thursday: 6 miles at Highberg Forest on the trails, 6 x strides
It was a hilly run in the woods with my team. We love to run here because it is almost always on the trails. We try to stay on soft surfaces in the summer to help prevent injury. It was nice a cool with quite a bit of wind.
Friday: 10 min warm up, 4 x 6 min at tempo pace with 2 min recoveries, 10-min cool down, 4 x 200 rep
It was a hilly run, probably too hilly for tempo, but I was at my brother's soccer game and I had to get it in. My brother's team ended up winning, which made it worth it. The temperature was perfect for a tempo run. Lesson by Brooke: Don't eat many slices of pizza before your run.
Saturday: 9 miles at Bear Swamp
This is the team's favorite place to run. It is hilly, tough footing, and makes you tougher. What's awesome is when it's muddy--and it was really muddy--it makes it more fun. We covered each other in mud when we splashed through the puddles. Chelsea, one of my teammates, got lost so we had to search for her. It's crazy when someone gets lost, as it is a huge place to have to look for someone, but she found her way back out so all ended well. It was pretty warm out, but the woods weren't bad--covered shade, TBH--and we just had to stay ahead of the horse flies.
Total miles: 50 miles
Recap: This was a huge mileage week for me. It's the most I've done all year, but I didn't take a day off this week. This is also the week we usually do running camp at our house, and we always get a lot in this week, but we ended up not having camp. I needed a big week because I am going to the Salmon River Reservoir with my family and I won't get in as much running.
WEEK 2 (July 29-August 4)
Sunday: OFF DAY. Butttttt, I was on my feet all day at the Saratoga Goat show! It was an awesome day of showing...as my goats ROCKED!!
Monday: 6 miles, 4 x 200 rep with Liverpool's girls
It was all flat ground, and we passed Dunkin' Donuts--which was pretty tempting if I'm being honest. The Liverpool girls always laugh at me because I love a good doughnut. It was early in the morning, so it wasn't that hot or humid out yet.
Tuesday: 6+ miles, 6 x strides
This was my first day at the Reservoir. I ran on road and flat trails with my cousin, Damion. We averaged about 7:10 mile pace. It was super humid and super hot (because I procrastinated all day until about 3:00 pm). I loved the run once we got going, Damion is fun to run with because he is always cracking jokes.
Wednesday: 10 miles at Coach Vanetta's house
I ran some miles at sub-7 min pace because I got to talking to Jenna and Maddy--and we forgot about how fast we were going. Most of the miles were about 7:20 pace. About two miles in, Jenna and I almost missed the turn. Thank goodness for our other running buddies. It was humid, but cool.
Thursday: OFF DAY, just lots and lots of fishing and kayaking (and sleeping). I am pretty good at fishing if I do say so myself. Also, I feel that recovery is a big part of training.
Friday: 4 miles, 4 x 200 rep
The run was easy just to loosen up my legs after taking yesterday off. I definitely was tight from not running the day after a long run. But I love doing 200s since they make me feel fast, and I just love feeling my legs turn over. I was going to go swimming toda, but then I saw a water snake and totally chickened out.
Saturday: 8 miles at the reservoir
Mom drove me down to a 4-H camp in Amboy to run on the trails, but I came to find there were only about 20 minutes of trails, so we took to the roads. There is a huge Amish Community in the area near the reservoir, so I got to run by many of them. It was really neat to see entire families all working together. It was awesome to see that some of them had goats.
I wanted to run up and pet them because I miss mine, but I didn't dare to. My mom rode her bike with me so that I wouldn't be alone. She hurt her knee last year and it hasn't been the same since. I didn't feel great because it was so humid outside. It's a good thing it was early in the morning, or it would have been dreadful. We are leaving the reservoir today, so it is back to reality tomorrow.
Total Miles: 34+ miles
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