Week 1 Spring Semester: Kicking Off the Semester: Runs, Races, and New Beginnings
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”
— Pelé
By: Hong Bing Tang January 19th, 2025
01/13/2025 to 01/19/2025
Introduction:
Hello amazing people! Wishing that you’ve had a wonderful week. Last week was the first week of the semester and along with that, a lot of adjusting, figuring things out, and planning. With starting school there were a lot of events to plan and people to see. Overall, it’s been a fun but busy week, so let’s get into it!
Running:
This week was a big week of running. It was nice to get back and run together with the whole group. In addition, since we were all back on campus, we now could do workouts together. This track season Jenny is trying something new with doing a fast speedy workout on Tuesday, followed by a threshold workout on Wednesday. This was the first time I have done workout days back-to-back and knew it would be a little tougher on the body. Since Jenny had not seen us since the beginning of December, we did a short workout on Tuesday that was essentially six 200s. While the workout was quite short, I had not run 200 that fast since the outdoor track last year, so my body was quite sore on Wednesday. . . and we had another workout. Luckily it was 5xthreshold mile which was a good workout but not taxing on the body. I really surprised myself by doing these threshold miles since I went way faster than I thought I was going to be able and felt strong on the reps. Then on Friday we had a race but more on that later in the blog. Overall, a big week of running.
Class:
My class schedule for this semester is a tough one. While I am only taking 5 classes this semester, my schedule is still very packed. Monday and Wednesday are my busy days since I start my day going to one of my engineering labs before heading back home for lunch and then to practice. Once practice ends, I then head back to the engineering building at 3:30 to attend one class which then is followed by my second engineering lab. Luckily since this week syllabus week nearly all of my classes got out early which was very nice. My schedule on Tuesday and Thursday is much lighter with only 2 classes, one at 11am and one at 5:30pm. Since we only practice on Tuesday, it makes these days my homework days. The actual course load hopefully shouldn’t be too bad. With labs there might be a couple of lab reports that need to get done but are not too hard. Three of the classes I have this semester are with the same professor, and his workload is normally fair. Finally, the one class that might give me some troubles is my computer programming class. The professor of the class is good at teaching the class however there is a lot of material in the class and when the professor goes over the coding, he moves way to last so I most likely will have to spend a lot of out of class time to digest the content. I am looking forward to learning new content this semester!
Jack Skoog:
This year our first full team indoor meet was the first week of school. Going into the race I was a little nervous because I had not run a indoor race (minus the one I ran in December), since high school, and I was only on my fourth full week of running. In additionally, we had already done 2 workouts this week and my body was super sore. However since it only the first meet of the season there was really no pressure. For this meet, we were going to do a lot of events. I was running the mile, 3k, and 4×4. This is quite a lot of load since in college we normally do not run more than 1 event and if we do 2 events, the second event is normally a shorter one. Going into the race I was looking forward to getting out there and competing and enjoying the process. When we finished out warm up for the mile, the whole guys team headed to the Locker room and when we tried to enter the code to open the door, the keypad was dead. So we got someone with a master key to open the door, however his key was not working. Since all of our running gear was in the locker room and it was not working it was determined that some people had to rush back home in order to grab things that they could race in. It was a quite chaotic 20 minutes but somehow they were able to get the door open and luckily we were able to grab the gear we needed with some time to spare before the mile.
After getting all of our stuff on, soon enough we were racing the mile. The race went out pretty fast and it was a struggle and I fell off the pack pretty fast. I feel that I lose confidence in track events below the 3k since I consider myself more of a long distance runner and therefore don’t think I can run a fast mile or 800. I hope to continue to gain confidence and keep racing these event in order to gain some confidence. After the mile we had about 2 hours before the 3k was going to start so I was able to talk and my dad and catch up. Soon enough the two hours past by and the 3k was upon us. For this race, my race plan was to run goal 5k pace for the race which would be around 37.5 seconds per lap. I started off right on pace, since we had already run another event this pace felt really tough so I started to fall off the pace. However, a little over halfway through the race I felt a little bit better and pushed a little bit more and hop back on pace. I was really happy with the effort of this race since somethings when things get tough, I don’t always push and give more effort and somethings things fall apart. Finally the last event which was the 4×4. Clay, Carson, Sean, and I were running a 4×4 since we thought it would be fun to do a Lake Orion 4×4. I knew that it would hurt but it would only be for less than 30 seconds. We all were pretty tired from the events from beforehand and were racing people that were more specialized in the 400 so our goal was just to finish the race. And we did just that. It hurt pretty bad but was over quickly and was a super fun experience! The meet was filled with some good and some but there is a lot of take and get better at so I for the first indoor meet in nearly 3 years I think it was success!
Dinner:
After the meeting, Jessie, my dad and I went out and ate. It was the first time that my dad and Jessie had met. Overall, it went pretty well, and I was glad that we went out to eat with the three of us. Plus, we saw many other teammates at Los Azteca’s too, which was funny.
Secret Santa + Lions Game:
On Saturday night the wholes guy team decided to do a get together for the lions playoff game. Before the game we also decided to do our team Secret Santa. I was looking forward to this since our team is pretty funny and always chooses some funny gifts for each other. This years gifts were really good. Nearly everyone got some sort of practical gift, sorry Carson you got a pretty bad gift, along with a funny and personalized gift as well. I am really happy that everyone did really well with there gifts. Aiden had me this year, so of course he got me something that was creative and funny. He got me a “Asians for trump T-Shirt” which was really funny and thoughtful of him. After the gift exchange we watched the lions game which to say was quite a disappointment. After securing the number one seed, we were slightly favor to win against the commanders. However the game was close throughout the first half. However Jared Goff was not playing very good and had threw 2 interceptions. Combined with another interception, a fumble, and our defense not being able to get a stop, we could not overcome the dominant offense of the commanders and lost to them 45 to 31. A unfortunate end to a stellar season but we have next year I guess.
Conclusion:
As this first week of the semester ends, I can’t help but reflect on how much has happened. From hitting the ground running (literally!) with track workouts and races to diving into a packed schedule of classes, it’s been a whirlwind of activity. While the week was full of challenges—whether it was pushing through tough workouts, navigating syllabus week, or even enduring a tough Lions loss—it was equally filled with moments of connection, laughter, and growth.
I’m excited to see how this semester unfolds and to tackle the opportunities ahead. Whether it’s on the track, in the classroom, or during team hangouts, I know there’s so much to learn and experience. Here’s to staying strong, embracing the chaos, and finding joy in the journey. Until next time, have a great week, everyone!
Goals update:
Journaling: I journaled twice this week and both instances helped improve my focus and stress levels.
Nail biting: I had a really bad day of biting my nails yesterday 🙁
Reading: I forgot to ask Jenny for a book this week. I either will or go to the library to borrow one.
Phone usage: An average of 1 hour and 24 minutes of screen time on my phone this week which is really good but most likely won’t be this is low in the future most likely since I was really busy this week
Future: Met with Eli and Aiden this week to finalize that places to visit. Additionally, I have a virtual video call interview on Monday. This next week I was to focus on investing.
Get in Touch
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