Great Oak High School's cross-country team does a light 6-mile recovery run before their next meet. Sophomore Mateo Joseph and teammates fight for spots in the top seven lineup that races at state and nationals, where raw speed matters less than performing under pressure.
Battling for positions on this team is definitely something that's not fun.
I have to perform my best each time if I want to be on the line at state and nationals.
I try and push myself to the limit every day.
This Great Oak team is like a life experience I've never experienced before. It's a combination of hard work, competitiveness, learning that you don't really get anywhere else.
We have so many people that could make the jump to the top 7. Most teams are competing with other teams, but really we're competing with each other.
I'm Mateo Joseph. I'm a sophomore and I run for Great Oak High School. Today we just had a light 4-mile workout because we have a race tomorrow, so we want to keep it a little bit light. It's been a little tough. Starting on Monday, we had a sand workout, and then Tuesday was pretty tough as well. We had long mileage. I try and push myself to the limit every day. I want to be on the line towards the end of the year. I feel like I'm motivated by the people around me.
We don't like to admit it. A lot of times we like to pretend to be humble and stuff like that, but we're really all looking out to beat each other. We really want to be on the line at NXN and at state. It means a lot to us. I know personally for me as a freshman, I've looked up to the seniors that won NXN in 2015 and I've always wanted to be like them. The same goes for everyone else on this team that has a shot at it.
It's competitive drive that makes us run faster every day, train harder, run faster at our races. I would say it's a good thing. It's pushed me to become the best runner that I've ever been. I enjoy being on a team where it's very competitive within the team to try and see who can toe the line at the national championships.
So for workout today, we've got 6 miles at pre-race recovery pace, which is, Coach, I'm going as slow as I can. So towards the back end of your recovery pace is fine, but nice and relaxed, 6 miles. Then we come back and we have our core hit number 2, yes? And then we're good. Friday we race, Saturday you sleep in, Saturday evening you go for your long run, Sunday you recover, Monday you get in a long run on your own. If you know that you need to keep yourself accountable, then send me your watch.
Right?
If you struggle to keep yourself accountable, send your watch. That's the best way to do it. I'm going to send my watch, that way I know I'm going to keep myself accountable. Anything else, Coach?
No?
All right, guys, we can get out and get our 6 in.
Come on! Yeah!
Definitely there's some anxiety always on our team because everybody wants to be in the top 7, and we have a lot of kids that are capable of being on there with a great race. We've got some guys this year that have been waiting their turn. Cameron Hilton's been waiting for a while. We've got a young young sophomore, Mateo Joseph, that is one of those kids I think at the end of this season is going to be taking on not just our kids but everybody's. And Noah Nevins has made a huge leap this year. On the girls' side, you know, it's kind of wide open. We've got a big 3. Those top 3 are as good as anybody in the country. Past that, it's hard to tell exactly who's going to be where. We've got a lot of different pieces that are trying to figure out how to get into that top 7, and I can tell you that's one of the hardest things in my job is figuring out which 7 at which time. So we'll go to meets like Seaside that we're going to this week and try to get some more data and try figured out. I always tell kids it doesn't matter how fast you are if you can't do it in the big races. If you cannot perform when it matters, then you're never going to be on the line when it matters for me because I've got to have kids that already know what the results are going to look like. I think that it focuses the kids because they realize if I don't do the work, then I drop really quickly down the list. And I think that's a benefit for us. We've always got 7 kids that are dialed because they'll kill to get there.
If I didn't have as many guys, I probably wouldn't work as hard. They're always pushing you, pushing me to be my best self. Push me to my limit and go as fast as I can and make sure I don't give up.
When I think about almost being in the top 7, all I want is to secure it. It's constantly what we're thinking about when we run, like this morning, just 4 miles. Every little thing, we're trying to get to that top 7. We're trying to be on the line in Anniston. We're trying to be up in Portland in December. That's what we want. That's the drive, and that's what gets us up in the morning every day.
What we try to do is keep it fun, keep it relaxed, just let the kids know that, you know, if you're going out and doing the best that you can, that you are where you're at and not to stress it. And for the most part, I think they understand that that's how it works. And one of the things we stress big time is being a good teammate. And, you know, if you care about your teammate, then it doesn't crush you that they're in that spot because you're actually happy for them.
What we have to remember is that, yes, it's really competitive right now, and I am only thinking about competition right now, but by the time we get to NXN, we're not going to win unless we're doing it for each other.
Because that's when the competition between each other kind of ends and it becomes about beating the other teams. Hello, we're here with another vlog with Chris Verdugo. Boo! Hey, what's up? Welcome to the vlog. Chris, how's the run today? Ah, pretty good. We're going pretty slow. It's nice. We usually go like 6:30 probably. It's not fun. Today we're going about— Oh, I forgot to start it.
