Seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, Tom Woermer is running.
The senior cross country and track athlete has been competing for the Eagles for the last three and a half years with hardly one day of off training. He totals over 100 miles a week and competes over 15 times during the academic year, all while balancing a full course load.
“It’s the hardest part about our sport in terms of being a student-athlete,” Woermer said. “We are always in season, so we are always doing the maximum hours that you’re allowed to do for sports. It’s tough because we’re always traveling throughout the year. Figuring out how to make it fun is the most important thing.”
Woermer ran cross country and track during high school, but he said that he wasn’t entirely convinced that he wanted to run in college. However, after talking to head coach Matt Centrowitz and finding an interest in the CLEG (communication, law, economics, and government) major program, Woermer chose AU because it offered him the chance to pursue his academic passions and continue his sport, he said.
He saw success almost immediately on the track during his rookie season, dropping nearly a minute in his two mile race. While his times have continued to fall, his improvements have since been more gradual, and Woermer emphasized that improvement is a long-term process.
“The biggest thing I've learned is patience because for running, it’s been a four year progression of getting faster and being able to do more,” Woermer said. “If you have one bad season during the year, it’s about getting through all three seasons and just being patient and letting yourself progress…. [and] just knowing that it is a four year process, and it will all come together.”
The biggest challenge facing him and his teammates who also compete in all three athletic seasons is the constant routine of practice and the lack of rest days, he said.
“People think that running is so hard because of the actual running, but we enjoy that,” Woermer said. “The hardest part is that sometimes you want to skip a day. You’re tired or you’ve been going at it for so long, and you need a break, but you just don’t get one.”
Although running is an individual sport, Woermer draws inspiration from his teammates and uses their support to help him stay positive during the heaviest training cycles. When asked about the highlight of his four years at AU, Woermer described the happiness he felt watching one of his teammates, Mark Leininger, break a school record in the 10k during the 2013 outdoor track season.
“In our sport, you enjoy seeing other people do well because it gives you hope that it’s going to work out for you to,” Woermer said. “You’re working for four years, but in the blink of an eye it can all come together and you can have that great race. And when [Leininger] did that it was a perfect example of that.”
Leadership and camaraderie helps Woermer and his teammates keep the sport fun as they train every day for the entire school year. Sophomore Corina Velazco, another AU runner who races cross country and track, agreed with Woermer about the importance of teamwork and said that she enjoyed her first year as a three-sport athlete last year because she found a mentor in a senior runner.
“I think that because everything was new, I was able to have a pretty good season,” Velazco said. “I also had a great senior leader, Julia Sullivan. I would just do whatever she did, and I had a lot of fun my freshman year cross country.”
Velazco later paired with Sullivan to break the school record in the 4x800 outdoor relay event along with teammates junior Kelseagh Budris and graduate Ali Tyburski.
“I love outdoor track,” Velazco said. “The feeling of the outdoor track is just great, and that’s kind of when you’re in your best shape, so it’s really exciting.”
Originally from Miami, Florida, Velazco spent the first two years of her high school athletic career specializing in the high jump and the long jump for the track and field team, but she switched her attention to mid-distance running events when she decided that she wanted to run in college.
“When it came to high school, I did want to pursue a sport in high school that could potentially lead me to pursue it in college as well, so I decided to stick with track and field, and that’s how I narrowed it down from all the sports,” Velazco said. “Around my sophomore year, my jumps weren’t as great to go to college for jumps, so that’s when I started trying new things, and everything kind of fell into place.”
And things fell into place fast. Velazco earned Patriot League Rookie of the Week honors twice during her first cross country season at American, and she earned team MVP honors for cross country as well. She has continued her success this season, earning a place on the all-time Top 10 list with her performance in the mile at the Armory Track Invitational on Friday, Jan. 30.
Both Velazco and Woermer will train every day for the remainder of the winter as they prep their bodies to perform at the final event of the year, the 2015 Outdoor Patriot League Championships on May 1 at the United States Military Academy. The meet will mark Woermer’s final race as a collegiate athlete, the end of a long journey of daily runs and grueling workouts.
But he doesn't plan to stop running.
“The great part about this sport is that there are tons of opportunities after college, you can still compete,” Woermer said.
Woermer has his eyes set on a marathon after graduation, but until then, he will just put one foot in front of the other with the hopes of ultimately scoring points at his final outdoor competition.
sscovel@theeagleonline.com
