Uh , the collegiate level is a lot different from the high school level . You train harder , you work harder , you have a team and you travel to different states with that team . It's just a whole different experience and for me coming in because I am , I am from , I'm from Texas , so I'm a little bit further away from Pepperdine , it was kind of a culture shock for me .
Uh , College itself is a whole other level of team commitment . You're working harder , you're training harder . You're practicing for 4 to 5 hours a day , which includes recovery time , and you're really , it's almost like a second job , and I say as an , you know , as an incoming freshman who is interested in competing at the collegiate level , um , just know that this is something that you must commit yourself 100% to .
I would go to a track by my house and I would spend a few hours specifically focusing on hurdles because I'm a hurdler . And just going through some drills , um some exercises my high school coach gave to me , and I would do that stuff on my own , especially um coming closer and closer to state and to the to the true epitome of the track season . That was when I would really , really go out there , really grind in those hours , even after hours of practice , I would go and at least do a few hurdle drills or just do a few sprint drills here and there to really hone in on my events specifically because um .
So I did not compete in the club sports . I did train with my high school team , but I also made time and effort to train outside of high school , just the high school practice time . I would go right after practice .
So one of the things that I did was I reached out to a bunch of coaches . So first I managed to train outside of practice and really get down on my times because I looked through each of those colleges that I was interested in . I had a list of 10 colleges that I potentially wanted to compete .
