Falling In Love With The Grind

"If you desire long term success, fall in love with the grind

and the process of your passion -- not the end result"

- Josh Cox

 

 

After what seemed to be an eternity, I am back healthy, and hungry and training full time with my team after spending a majority of my first couple months in Greenville dealing with an injury. Many hours were spent in the pool aqua jogging and working out, attempting to hold onto any gained fitness I had, and now that my hip is 100% pain free, I can finally start to enjoy the day-to-day process of training again! Thanks to Brad and the staff at Performance Therapy, and my coaches, Mike and Laura Caldwell, the slow painstaking process of easing back into things is finally behind me, and I can look forward to the fall season!

 

The big focus for GTC Elite this fall will be put on the 2014 USATF Club Cross-Country Championships December 13th, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  The race will host some of the very best runners and clubs in the United States, going after each other for ten-thousand meters in hopes of making the USA team for the World Cross Country Championships which will be held in Guiyang, China in 2015.

 

As I'm getting back into the routine of things here in Greenville, I am very focused and determined on the future and the task ahead. I have never ran a 10k Cross-Country race before, and to be with the very best doing so for the first time every this December is going to take a lot of hard work and effort to get there. You've got to appreciate the painstaking task of training full-time. With every ache and pain, is just another muscle or cell getting acclimated to the stress. After acclimation, follows adaption, and with adaption becomes results. Fall in love with the grind, and embrace the task, and results will come.

 

- BJW

Don't Pinch Me, I Don't Want To Wake Up

I thought it would be appropirate to update this old thing since it's national running day!

Over the course of the past two months, a lot has changed in my life. I graduated college from Shawnee State University, ran some of my last workouts with the Bears as they headed south to Alabama for the NAIA Track and Field National Championships, Said goodbye to my friends and family and moved to Greenville, South Carolina in pursuit of a professional running career.

This past semester has came and gown in a flash, and now that I have some free time to reflect, I can take the time to appreciate everything that has happened to me. Leaving Shawnee State, Eric Putnam, and my Bears was one of the hardest decisions I've had to make. They have become like family to me, and without the guidance and support from my college coach Eric Putnam, the other coaching staff, and my team, I wouldn't be where I am today. I know that the program is in great hands, and will continue to dominate on the national level.

Mike and Laura Caldwell, coaches of the Asics sponsored team Greenville Track Club Elite, gave me a shot, and May 15th I packed up my belongings and headed South to join the very prestigious GTC Elite. I am truly blessed and grateful to be given the opportunity to chase my dreams and persue my running potential. This has been something I've been dreaming about for years, and I don't plan on wasting a single moment. Since moving to Greenville, I have been slowly getting into the daily routine of waking up, going out and breaking down the body, each muscular fiber at a time, and following that up by refueling and recovering, only to wake up the next day and do it all over again hopping that my body will adapt and something beautiful will happen in the near future. Or, as Quenton Cassidy calls it, "The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials".

My new team, the GTC-Elite

Greenville has a very warm family-type feel to the town, with an amazing downtown area that has a wide varity of restaurents and eatieries that can satisfy any food craving. The nearby Appalachian foothills makes for a lush green environment, with a variety of nearby trails that makes for any runners dream. I've been here for almost three weeks now, and still have so much more to explore and discover about this town, but so far it already feels like home.

Downtown Greenville

I will make up my GTC-Elite debut at this Saturdays Music City Distance Carnival in Nashville, Tennessee where I hope to improve on my 5k PR. You can follow me on twitter at @BlakeWysocki and instagram at BlakeWysocki where I will probably be tweeting something running related, or posting a picture of a nearby forest.

Now get out there and enjoy the freedom and beauty to put one foot infront of the other and run!
- BJW

OptygenHP Review

This past month I've had the opportunity to test out a new and improved product by First Endurance Sports called OptygenHP. This formula was developed by one of the leading sports nutritional companies in the United States. Based out of Salt Lake City, Utah First Endurance is an innovative sports nutrition company that has made tremendous breakthroughs in the endurance sport world.

OpygenHP was developed to reduce cortisol levels, and by controlling the athletes cortisol levels, the athlete will decrease their recovery period time, improve their oxygen utilization, increase their VO2, improve their glycogen re-synthesis, and have an overall better endurance performance. OptygenHP has shown to also increase an athletes endurance capacity by 23%, by delivering 50% more beta-alanine which increases an athletes VO2, delays exhaustion, and lactate concentrations.

Since I've been taking OptygenHP, I have noticed a significant increase in my aerobic fitness, especially during long duration, moderate-to-high intensity workouts, like tempo or progression runs. I have also been surprised to wake up the next day after a hard workout, and not get that familiar "dead leg" tired feeling that usually comes after a hard session. I plan to continue using OptygenHP throughout my spring track season, because I know this amazing formula will help me reach new and faster times.

- Blake Wysocki