The Typical Week of an Athlete

I think a better fitting title for this post may have been Rise and Grind, I started my morning off with having to wake up at 5am for 6 am weights.  This week has been a busy one for the gymnasts and especially me.  Starting off with Sunday we had practice at 1:45 in the afternoon until 5:45, immediately after that we headed upstairs to do our 2 hours of required PRECO (study hall) putting me back in my dorm at about 9:15 that night.  I hung out with a few of my friends and thought I would get a good nights rest for my morning class.  I thought wrong… the fire alarm went of at about 1:45 am and we had to stand in the cold for a half hour while they tried to determine the cause.  Monday morning was an early one starting with my 7:30 math class, followed by English and then Spanish.  From there I had to book it across campus to make it to my 12:15 practice.  Practice was pretty typical, the numbers are starting to pick up drastically being that the season is just around the corner in gymnastics time.  After practice I did treatment which consisted of hamstring exercises and icing my elbow and hamstring.  By the time that was over, it was already 5!  The freshman gymnasts and I went to the sub for dinner and then I hit the books hard studying for my Biology test the next morning.  Biology has been by far my hardest class I have taken of the 6, it also happens to be my major.  Monday night was a late night because I was studying.  After I finally got to bed, the fire alarms went off again at about 2 am this time.  My Tuesday morning started off with 2 hours of PRECO followed by a weekly meeting with my academic advisor, Chris.  After that I took my Biology test that ended up going well and then I headed straight to practice.  This practice was shortened to 2.5 hours because we also had weights with our strength coach McKay.  In the weight room we started a new block of exercises, which is always a bit of a shock to your body at first but overall went really well and McKay was pleased.  Wednesday! Our only true day off during the whole week (that was not really the case this week however)…  After attending four classes with the first one being at 7:30 am and 2 hours of PRECO, I had to head to the locker room at 4 for our first team Skype meeting with our sports psychologist.  Immediately following the hour-long session, we headed up to the Skybox for a Winter Sports dinner with our sponsors.  I had a good time socializing with athletes from other sports along with meeting the people who make the sports we have here possible.  After that we headed back to the dorms and hung out until our nightly curfew of 11 pm.  This brings me to Thursday.  My morning started off again with PRECO for two hours and then my Biology class after that.  As you can probably guess I headed to practice after that.  This practice was four hours and a bit harder than the typical one because we are heading into the end of the week.  After practice and treatment, I headed to coffee with my roommate and did homework until the late group got done with practice.  We headed to the sub after that and then headed back to the room for a little bit.  We went to our floor meeting starting at 9 and then my roommate and I went to the sub to hang out with a couple of our friends.  The night ended up being a late one due to the many Uno games played and the weekend planning.  That brings me to now!  We had weights at 6 am until 7:15, they were again a bit challenging being that this is the beginning of a new workout block.  I have class in about 45 minutes and then another class after that followed by practice and treatments.  Some of my friends and I plan to carve pumpkins tonight and then my weekend is open.  Our coaches decided that because we have been working so hard we deserve the weekend off; everyone welcomed this idea with open arms.  The weekends are always the best part of the week for us… besides the fact our curfew gets extended to 1am it gives us the chance to live life like a “normal college kid” with no scheduled workouts or treatments.  Rise and grind seems to fit the life of many of the college athletes here,  but I think we would all agree that "The pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow."

How Did I End Up Here?

How did I end up at Boise State University? College has been a thought in my mind ever since I moved to Twin City Twisters Gymnastics in Champlin, Minnesota. Over the past 6 years, we have had about 30 girls graduate with full ride scholarships to various schools of their choice. I made it my goal to graduate with a scholarship to a top 20 gymnastics school in the country. I used that goal to push myself through the days where I was too sore to take my next step. When the time finally came my sophomore year to start looking at schools, the thought of having to decide on a college at 16 years old completely stressed me out. I didn’t know if I wanted to be far from home or close, at a big or small school. The amount of options were endless. I struggled with trying to decide for about two years until 2012 JO Nationals in Virginia Beach. My top schools walking into the arena the first warm up day were the University of Denver, The Ohio State University, and Southern Utah University. I walked into the arena and almost every college coach in the country was sitting at tables right next to the equipment intently watching their top prospective recruits. On competition day I was warming up for beam and my coach asked me if I had ever considered going to Boise State. My first thought going through my head was that I didn’t want to eat potatoes for the next four years. I told him I had never even considered them as an option because they ranked higher than I had been looking. He told me they were very interested and I just needed to have a good meet to keep it that way.