Blogs : Eric Simmons

Hmmmmm....

I meant to update this journal yesterday, but I was still sick and delirious from the taste of stomach acid after my workout, which was brought about by my oversleeping and not being able to eat ANYTHING before practice. Yesterday, we did a 500, 400, 300 with about 12 minutes rest between each. I did the 500 in 63.2 (49.1) through the quarter, the 400 in 52.2, and the 300 in 37.5. After that, the whole world collapsed upon me and I saw death (just kidding).  I was pleased with the workout because it shows that all the short rest, high rep workouts that we have been doing have made my recovery time great, which will help with my ability to run  quality rounds and multiple races.

Last week, our track workouts consisted of 4x150 on Monday, 8 200s on Wednesday, and 60, 60, 70, 90 on Friday. I ran the 150s in 16.7, 16.6, 17.0, and 16.5. The 200s were the same as they have always been, just a second faster, so I won't really waste too much space talking about that. On Friday, I ran 6.6, 6.7, 7.8(false start, haha) and 9.8 on the 90. Afterwards, we played around with a few 4x4 handoffs.

Besides my senior thesis, which took up a boatlad of time as usual, I spent a great deal of time helping to correct our indoor schedule. We were supposed to be opening up on January 5th at Tennessee State, just to shake the cobwebs off and ready ourselves for the rest of the season. However ,we have some people who claimed they made irreversible travel reservations months in advance and would not be able to make the meet. My thoughts on the situation at first were littered with profanity, which makes the fact that I didn't write this journal yesterday a good thing. Now, my thoughts are still pretty intense, but I feel I can type them without getting myself banned from Trackshark or being emailed about a team meeting where I will be tarred, feathered, and verbally berated by various members of the team. I feel that running track for a university, and having your education and most other basic needs paid for is a privilege and not a right. If the coach wants you to come back two days early in condition to compete respectably, you should have no problem coming back and doing something that the man who is helping to put you through school asks you to do. On top of that, I don't feel that something like this is negotiable, you should just have to come back. If you're mad, be mad, no one is really going to care. I look to the basketball team as an example. These guys will probably get to go home for about 2 days before embarking on Christmas tournaments and opening up their conference schedule. Basically, some individuals on our team should quit being so damn selfish and and do what's best for the team. I'm not really concerned about whether or not any of my teammates read this and feel offended or singled out about my "rant" because everything I just wrote is true, or "real talk" as the young kids say these days. All that can happen is that people can formulate more false opinions of my character to add to the list that has already been started this semester, which include "snitch" and "hater".

As far as recreational activity is concerned, last week was pretty dull. Tim and I attempted to take advantage of the Cici's pizza buffet in Riverdale, but when we got there we saw several angry people in the parking lot and in line. A family approached us, and the mother said that roaches were crawling out of the salad and the pizza and the people in line were all receiving their refunds. At that point in time, I didn't even want to eat anymore, so we went and watched our men's basketball team beat down Carver. On Thursday and Friday, we sat around and watched television and played Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 on the Xbox. On Saturday, Ahmad, Tim, Shaun and I drove to good ol' Carrollton to watch Clayton State beat West Georgia 75-64. While down there, my pops baked some chicken wings, made some peas, onion rings, and french fries. We pretty much demolished all of the food and raided the cabinets to go back to school.

Well, that was pretty much it. This week, I'm tackling finals and my thesis, so I will pretty much be holed up in the room studying and typing until the wrist I broke cramps up and dies.

"real talk"

10:07 PM, December 11, 2007 .. Posted by missbri

you should tell your teammates that if this is the attitude they have, they should have just signed up for intramural sports. i agree wholeheartedly with you and it's a shame that people don't always "get it". there is a difference between being a student and a student-athlete. students can do whatever they want on christmas break, spring break, whatever. student-athletes have a commitment to their sport and it's not something they should take for granted.