Joe Sapone enters the 2022 cross country season with high expectations. The senior from Holy Innocents' Episcopal School in Atlanta is the defending GHSA Class 1A Private champion in cross country and a fifth-place finisher in the silver race at the Garmin RunningLane Cross Country Championships, where he ran a 5K PR of 14:58.09 at John Hunt Park in Huntsville, Alabama. This outdoor season, Sapone also ran a PR of 1:52.69 for 800m and 4:09.64 for the full mile. Sapone will provide a training blog for MileSplit over the next four weeks.
Related Links:
Training Blog: Samantha and Nicole Humphries
August 28: 11.5 miles
I started the week off with an 80-minute long run. Ended up getting 11.5ish in. An easy effort just enjoying the LR.
August 29: 9 miles
I did 5 miles before practice at 5:42 pace. I felt good and ran during my free period at the end of the day. Practice was 10-minute warm up, then a 20-minute run plus 150s and then core. We had a solid core session. The team is starting to look stronger in these.
August 30: 5.5 miles
Today was supposed to be a workout on the track, but it ended up storming. So I did a 10-minute warm-up then I did a 4-mile tempo on the treadmill, with the splits roughly being 5:43, 5:36, 5:27, 5:21. I use roughly because my Garmin was being weird. Then, I hit the ice bath.
August 31: 7.5 miles
We did a 10-minute warm up, then had an excellent core session. Then I did six miles. I ran a new route by my school, which is always good to find a new spot to run.
September 1: Pre-Race
"Pre-Race" day. We usually do about 10 minutes and then some 200s, except for today's "Pre-Race" we ran with the middle school team for 10 minutes and then the guys just decided to do the other 10 minutes on the track. Then we had 3x200 at mile pace to get the legs moving. Finally, we ended with a 5-minute jogging lap for the cool-down, no slower, no faster than five minutes.
September 2: 3 mile warm-up + 5K
Race day. We had a half day of school, so I did a pre-race shakeout when we got out. I ran for about 15 minutes -- really easy -- but I didn't use my Garmin, just a stopwatch, although I got in probably around 1.75 to two miles. Then it was race time. I did a 10-minute warmup. It was the first 5K of the season. I ran a solo 15:48 -- not my best time, but a good rust-buster to get prepared for the season. It should be noted that both our boys JV and varsity got the win, which is an excellent way to kick off the year!
Solid week of running, next week mileage will come up again and workouts will probably be more difficult.
Mileage ≈ 44 miles
