Abdullah just capped his senior year of cross country at Wayne State off with an All-American award for his 18th place finish at the Div II national championships. In addition to his personal successes, he help lead his team to a 12th place team finish. Read on to find out more about Abdullah and his season.
RM: What was your goal going into the NCAA meet as an individual and for your team?
AS: I had very high expectations for myself and for the team. Coach Cummins asked me what I had set in mind the week before NCAA and I specifically told him between 20 to 23. After looking at all of the regional results, I didn’t think I would finish any worse than that especially on a course we’ve already ran on before, early in the season.
As far as the team goal, we really thought we could be somewhere in top 10, more like 8 to 10.
RM: How did the race play out compared to how you thought it would play out? What would you have changed if you could go back and run it again? AS: I spent a lot of time thinking of how the race would play out. Honestly, I put myself in a position where I was ready to react to whatever was going to happen. I expected it to go out quick off of the line, but I didn’t anticipate that many runners in the front by the time we reached the top of the hill. I literally sprinted up the hill trying to crack the top 30 because I knew it would be tremendously hard to pass a lot of runners on that course with the weather conditions we had. I was a little further back than where I needed to be in the first mile, but I held my composure and stayed relax and confident as there was plenty of racing left. I would run the race exactly the way I ran it without any changes.
RM: Heading into the season, what was your individual and team goals? AS: The individual goal was to be an All-American. The same goal I had coming into every season. There are almost insurmountable barriers that need to be hurdled in order to reach that type of status. That’s something I constantly do when I try to push my self as close to my fitness level as possible during workouts to see what I’ll be capable of come championship season.
One of the team goals was to advance to the NCAA. That’s always set in stone coming into every season. We try to develop every runner on the team to be as good as they can be. In order to do so, we constantly remind them that it’s a great deal of hard work and commitment. Every little thing that they do; whether at practice, back at the apartments, or even on their free time, smart choices need to be made for them to help this program excel. Team goals don’t really vary from year to year. Coach Cummins does a pretty good job of bringing hardworking talented runners who will contribute and be fully committed to the team goals. We always feel like we can compete for the top spots at our region and conference meets. The conference meet is usually our first test to see what this team is capable of doing come Regionals and Nationals.
RM: How did your training going this season? What would you have changed?
AS: Training was as tough as it could have been. With the coursework I have this semester, it made very challenging to go through every practice session. It was more challenging at the beginning of the season when we had circuits three days a week along with as many as three workouts in a five day span on Tuesday, Wednesday and even Saturdays . But also, it’s the amount of effort you put in day in and day out that will maximize the benefits.
This program thrives off of hard work and effort. If you’re able to do that, then there shouldn’t be any doubts whether you’ll be a successful runner. Following a long productive summer with lots of biking and stairmaster workouts, I put myself in a situation where I was strong and confident coming into the season with pretty high standards. Tuesday workouts were absolutely no fun at all. We would do our long run on Sundays, run and lift weights on Mondays then do a Tuesday workout which were extremely hard.
I’m very pleased with how my training went this past season as I have no regrets and nothing would be changed if I would do it again.
RM: What will be your next running goal, now that you are finished with cross country at Wayne State? AS: I haven’t been putting a lot of time into this, yet. I’ve always wanted to do a marathon. My buddy is trying to convince me to run the Chicago Marathon next October with him. I’m going to enjoy my downtime for the time being then try to start training again shortly.
