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A bigger goal to reach

Day aiming to become All-American at national race

Courtesy Photo Alpena High senior Mitchell Day, pictured here with Alpena cross country coach Joy Bullis, will run on Saturday in the Foot Locker National Championships in San Diego. Day, who is headed to Wake Forest to run collegiately, will try to end his high school career as an All-American by finishing in the top 15 out of 40 runners.

Mitchell Day has earned a lot of titles this season: Big North Conference champion, regional champion, Division 1 state runner-up.

On Saturday, he’ll try to add one more title to the list: All-American.

Day will be one of 40 runners competing in the Foot Locker National Championships at Morley Field at Balboa Park in San Diego. The Alpena High senior earned a spot in the National Championships after finishing eighth in the regional race in Wisconsin last month. Day finished with a time of 15:12.7 and was one of two male runners from Michigan to qualify for the race along with Owosso’s Noah Jacobs.

The race will start at 10 a.m. PST and will be streamed on FootlockerCC.com.

For Day, who said he used to watch the race with teammates, the fact that he’s competing in it probably won’t hit him until Saturday morning.

“It’s a top-class race and I’ll feel it at the starting line,” Day said. “I’ve been telling a lot of people (the feeling) is surreal. Qualifying (used to be) more of dream than a goal.”

The race is new territory for Alpena coach Joy Bullis too and Day has been working with her to prepare as much as possible. Unlike the Michigan state finals course at Michigan International Speedway, a course Day knows well, there’s only so much he can do to prepare ahead of time for a course he’s never run on.

“”We’re recalling muscle memory and (running at) certain paces at certain times of the race,” Bullis said. “It’s hard to develop a race plan because there’s not a lot of room for strategy in a race like this,” Bullis said.

To prepare for the race, Day plans to jog the course on Thursday for the first time to get a feel for it and will do it again on Friday to develop a race plan.

Regardless of who’s racing or how unfamiliar the course is, Day plans to keep his focus on the task ahead, namely finishing in the top 15 to earn All-American honors. Going into the state finals last month, Day said he wasn’t feeling pressure and since then he said he’s feeling even more at ease.

“My mindset, it’s kind of funny, but in the last couple of races, there’s been a change of mindset and I’ve been more relaxed,” Day said. “It’s a big race and sometimes that can get to you. But you’ve got to block that out and treat it like it’s another race.”

Day is also feeling healthier. An injury before the state finals cut into his training time and he wasn’t quite at 100 percent during the race, finishing second. Now that he’s feeling healthier, Bullis is confident he’ll do well if he focuses on himself.

“The whole season he’s been on the up and up. He’s hit goal after goal and he’s going to get better and better as he keeps going,” Bullis said. “I always tell my runners, ‘Run the race you’re trained to run.’ If he does, everything will fall into place. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.”

Getting to the race has been one of Day’s biggest goals, but four years ago he couldn’t have pictured himself making a trip to California in December to run his final high school cross country race.

“I would’ve kind of chuckled (and) I don’t know that I would’ve believed them because I loved soccer. That feels like it was three or four days ago,” Day said. “That was our thing at the end of the season, my teammates and I, we’d get together and watch it. To see it first hand and be in the thick of it is a surreal feeling.”

Surreal or not, Saturday’s race is the culmination of the four years of hard work Day has put in over four years at Alpena and it could ultimately net him his greatest individual honor before he heads to Wake Forest next year.

“I’m not there just to enjoy it, I’m still going to compete and I still want to do well,” Day said.

The community has supportive of Day’s efforts as well. A page on YouCaring.com and donations from local businesses have netted more than $3,000 for Day, Bullis and members of Day’s family to make the trip to San Diego.

The YouCaring page will be up through the weekend and anyone wishing to donate can visit youcaring.com/mitchellday-703806.

James Andersen can be reached via email at sports@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5694. Follow James on Twitter @ja_alpenanews.

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