Blog: Alyssa Block's journey at the CCCAA State Championships

Freshman runner, Alyssa Block, is writing a daily blog for COSgiants.com on the team's journey inthe CCCAA State Championships this weekend. 

Friday, May 19, 12:50 p.m.

This morning, many of us woke up to run around 7:30 a.m. to get losend up for our state meet on Saturday May 19th.

We usually do a two-mile warm-up, 8 to 10 100m strides, and an easy, two mile cool down. As a team, we arrived at the COS vans around 12:30 p.m. Distance and sprinters were loaded up in three vans, with the company of Coach Bronzan, David Sanchez , Coach Xavier, and also Coach Robinson.

The great thing about being on this track team is we all support each other. Right when we arrive there's always joking and encouraging words shared. We will be traveling to the La Quinta Inn in downtown Sacramento. We will be arriving around 4 p.m., get settled im, and then go support our 10k runners around 7:45pm. This is just the beginning of our trip.

Friday, May 19, 2:51 p.m.

We made our first stop in Modesto around 3 p.m., at the Extra Mile Gas station. We all get to get out and stretch from being in the van for so long. All of us fall asleep in the vans and surprisingly wake up when we stop!

We all get out and grab small snacks to eat from the gas station. We usually get Gatorade, bags of chips, and water. Those are our go to's because we don't want to eat anything too heavy, and want to stay away from anything that may make us feel sluggish during our races. Our team dinner is also scheduled for around 8 p.m.

Some of the athletes even buy candy and junk food to eat AFTER we are all done running at the meet so we don't have to worry about feeling heavy or sluggish during a race. All of us love looking forward to our junk food after our meet.

So far, the van ride has been pretty mellow because we've been napping on the way. After our snacks, we usually wake up a little and get a little more excited. 

Friday, May 19, 7:22 p.m.

We finally made it to our hotel! We didn't make it right at 4 p.m., we arrived around 4:20-30p.m. ish, because of traffic.

We all unloaded our things and got out of the vans to check in with Coach Allen and Coach Bronzan. Unfortunately, our rooms weren't ready for us.

We all had to get our things and get back in the vans to head to American River College.

We have one girl representing COS in the heptathlon, two male long jumpers, and two 10k girls racing tonight.

We arrived at the track around 5p.m. ish and had to find where our blue tent was within the bleachers. Our long jumpers started around 6 p.m., and our 10k girls start at 7:45 p.m.

We are all excited to see how awesome all of our athletes do today. We all stand up against the gated fences to cheer on any of our athletes competing. Encouragement is really important to us. Without it, we wouldn't compete as a team and have a strong "family" bond. 

Friday, May 19, 9:50 p.m.

The 10k girls finished their race around 8:50 p.m., and once the race finished we had a quick celebration with them. We had to wait for them to cool down and after, we all loaded up back in the COS vans to headed out to eat dinner at Denny's.

We all got a table together and we're able to bond, celebrate, and get ready for our second day of our state races!

Once we head back to our hotel we have to gather together for a team meeting. After the meeting, we get ready for bed.

Once we wake up tomorrow morning we will get ready, eat breakfast, relax a little and then head out for a big day of racing.