Milesplit Cross Country Journals
Ammar Moussa returns this season as one of the top distance runners in the country. Last year Ammar earned a spot on the USA JR National XC team qualifying for the World Championships in Poland. While there he finished 5th for the USA team. Follow Ammar for the next few months as he journals about his final cross country prep season.
World XC Daily Blog
Ammar Moussa
(Sr., Arcadia High School, CA)
Journal Entry #1 (September 23, 2010)
Introduction
Hi you guys! Well this is my first time doing a real journal for an extensive period of time and so please excuse me if I seem a little…inexperienced. Well first things first. My name is Ammar Moussa, I’m a 16-year-old senior from Arcadia, California and I go to Arcadia High School. Back in my day I used to be a real avid soccer and basketball player. I started both sports when I was 7 and I loved playing both sports. Sports for me have always been an outlet and a way to just have fun and be competitive. My parents introduced me to both sports, but I've been blessed to have two parents who aren’t sports crazy and push me to the point where I start to hate my sport.
(Photo right: Ammar at the 1/2 mark of the Mt. Sac Invitational in 2009.)
I first got into running when I ran the local city track meet as an 8th grader, and won the mile in 5:25, a 40 second PR at the time. I loved winning and at the next meet I ran against real track runners, ones with singlets, and short shorts, and flats. If you see a picture of the runners on the starting line, you see all the fast runners, then there’s me, in baggy shorts, baggy bright yellow shirt, and basketball shoes. That was me. I ended up winning that race in the last lap in 5:14. I totally loved this. I could do this winning thing and having fun thing forever.
At the next meet, I ran against more real runners, faster runners. I ended up giving it all I had, ran 5:01 and got 4th. I had so much fun doing it, and I was hooked. Later that year I joined the high school cross country summer program and just loved the sport. I learned so much over that summer, from running shoes, to shorter shorts to how to not die out. As I learned more, I ran faster and I became more competitive. The more I lost, the more upset I would get and the more I wanted to work, and I was officially hooked into running. I decided not to try out for any other sports and focus entirely on running my freshmen year. Best choice of my life.
Today by the grace of God, the support of my parents, the support of my teammates, and the knowledge of my coaches I’m being asked by milesplit.com to journal this season. I’m definitely honored, and I’m going to be as open as possible with everything I do. I think that its cool that people want to learn more about the sport, and people seem to think I know something…I really don’t. I've learned so much from my coaches, from other coaches, and other athletes, and this makes me the runner I am today. So happy reading!
Next week on the 25th we will be up in Palo Alto racing at the Stanford Invitational. I’ll be checking from there! Thanks for spending the time to read this and I hope to get to know you as the season goes along. Thanks again!
