Nick Kozlowski enters the 2018 season as the nineteenth ranked returning cross country runner in Division I due to his 15:55.86 effort at last September's Midwest Meet of Champions.
The Mentor junior is looking to build off a successful sophomore campaign where he qualified for the State Championship meet and competed at the Nike Cross Nationals Midwest Regional in the open race. Kozlowski also excels on the track; he owns impressive pr's of 1:56.90 (800) and 4:27.98 (1600). He recently recorded a third place time of 4:38.26 on the roads of downtown Cleveland at the inaugural Guardian Mile event.
Check out one of Nick's recent weekly training logs.
Today started the peak week of my summer mileage - I'm trying to get as many miles in as I can before the season starts. My team and I ran 8 miles to start off the week. The work that is put in over the summer will dramatically change how well the season unfolds and running with others, especially a team, make the runs easier.
The Greater Cleveland XC Camp started today which allows a variety of ages to come together and run, as well as learn about many different areas of the sport. I did 11 miles that morning with the last 5 averaging 6:15 pace. Later that evening, I did a 4 mile easy run to build my mileage.
Over the summer, I don't usually do workouts, as I focus on mileage building. Today was the first workout of my summer. It consisted of a 2 mile warm-up and cool-down and several out and backs with the times starting at 4 minutes, then to 3 minutes, etc. Out and backs are one of my favorite workouts because they genuinely help me learn how to internally pace myself. This is a huge help in races where watches aren't permitted.
Running post-workout days are especially important because you need to remove all of the remaining acids inside your legs and make sure they do not get too tight. My team and I did a 9 mile easy run to reduce the risk of injury.
On Saturday at the end of the GCXC Camp there is a 5K race to see where everyone's fitness is at during this point of the summer. Today everyone just did an easy 4 mile run with 6-100 meter strides to loosen up the legs for the race tomorrow. We also focused on stretching and rolling out our legs to prepare for the competition.
Today was the GCXC Camp race so I could check on my summer progress. I did a 2 mile warm-up and completed the 5K with a time of 16:36. I wasn't happy with this result, but after a hard week of running that just provided me with more motivation for the upcoming season. After that, I completed my 2 mile cool-down in order to stay consistent. I am fortunate to have continued to be injury-free.
Total Miles: 7
After this long week of running, I decided to take a rest day. Rest is extremely important to me because I know I need to give my body time to recover from all of the work that I've been doing. Resting does not mean stop doing the little things though, so I always make sure to do my daily core and continue to stretch as well as roll out my muscles with the hopes to stay healthy.
Total Miles for the week: 50
