A day in the life of a student-athlete

Zach Friesen, Staff Writer

   His alarm goes off at five in the morning, a solid four hours before his first class begins and around four hours after he fell asleep. Blake Savage sleepily gets up and out of bed, puts on his practice clothes, grabs an extra pair of shorts to swim in and heads out of the door of his dorm room with his teammates to make their way to morning practice.

   The sun is not yet up, so the walk to the gym is a cold and dark one. He and his teammates walk in silence, as they are still trying to wake themselves up for the workout they are about to undergo. They will begin their workout in the weight room of the Broadhurst Gymnasium, getting a 45-minutes weight lifting session in before heading over to the swimming pool across the hall for the second half of their workout, which will consist of either treading water, swimming laps or doing water resistance drills for 45 minutes.

   After the workout ends around 7:15, Blake and his teammates walk back to their dorm room to shower and get ready for classes. Luckily, Blake has a little bit of time before his first class, so he uses the time to catch up on some much-needed sleep.

   After a quick nap, Blake goes to his classes for the day. He is admittedly feeling a little sluggish today, feeling the effects of a long couple of days of classes and practices. He does not let this affect him, however, as he powers through every class on the day.

   After he finishes his classes, he heads to the Commons to grab a quick bite to eat before heading to baseball practice. It is the middle of the week, so the thought of a weekend to rest up is still quite a ways off. This means he cannot lose focus on the practice ahead of him, no matter how tired he is. He fights fatigue throughout the practice and the ensuing scrimmage, but he is able to make his way through it all to finish the day off right and build momentum heading into the last part of the week.

   After practice is finished, Blake goes back to his dorm room with his roommates. They clean themselves up before going to get something to eat from Pop’s. After dinner, they decide to head back to the room to call it a night and work on some homework. By the time Blake gets done with his homework, it is getting fairly late, and, thanks to his early morning, Blake is especially tired, so he decides to call it a night. He feels satisfied in his day’s work, but he also knows that he has to do the exact same thing all over again the next day.