Tecumseh Adams competing for spot in NCAA championship
When Tecumseh Adams runs a track race, he is not focused solely on race strategy.
He reads the brand names on opponents’ jerseys, or the colors of the shoes they wear.
“Sometimes when I’m running, I’ll study people’s shoes or jerseys to take my mind off the amount of laps we have to do,” Adams said.
Adams, a sophomore distance runner on the CMU track and field team, won an individual Mid-American Conference championship in cross-country last fall.
He will compete today at the Indiana Relays at the University of Indiana for a spot in the 5k event in the NCAA Indoor Championship in March.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” Adams said. “My training has been good.”
Adams took a week off between the cross-country and track and field seasons. He said he is aiming to finish with a time around 13:50, which is about 20 seconds faster than his personal best.
“Most of the guys I was running with in cross were sub-14 runners,” he said. “And I’ve always been a pretty good track runner.”
Adams said he has spoken repeatedly with assistant coach Matt Kaczor about his race strategy.
“Me and my coach, Kaczor, have been talking about times, and where I should be at different parts of the race,” he said. “My coach is basically saying to follow the leaders within reaching distance, and not get separated.”
Apart from Adams, the Central Michigan men’s and women’s track and field teams will be intentionally limited by director of track and field and cross-country Willie Randolph.
Randolph said the team is at its point in the season where it bears down on fundamentals to prepare for a run at a MAC championship.
“If we can relax ourselves and focus on the things we have to do, the execution will come a whole lot easier,” Randolph said.
Among the 15 competing athletes this weekend are senior multi-event athlete Josh Kettlewell and sophomore multi-event athlete Tim Reynolds, who will both compete at the Penn State National today and Saturday in College Station, Penn.
It will be Kettlewell’s and Reynold’s first multi-event meets of the season.
Randolph said he has no concern about the athletes performing without the company and support of their teammates.
“It’s a bunch of basketball and football games,” Randolph said about track and field as a sport. “You can’t stop and take a timeout. It’s always going on – it’s happening.”
