Inspiration

By Andie Tibbetts

Blake Lowery, one of the fastest boys in the state of Florida, calls me “ma’am” when he picks up the phone. This is my first interview, and his first time being interviewed, but it doesn’t take long before he’s describing the race course to me like we’ve known each other for more than two minutes. “Normally it’s cooler,” he says, “but it was super hot and muggy yesterday, which slowed us down.” The past couple of years the runners have enjoyed beautiful 50 degree weather at the start of the race, but this year it was a grueling 85. “The race opens with a really wide, fast start.” He says. “Everybody was running like a 4:45 mile time which you can’t keep up, obviously, especially when you hit the hills.” And there are a fair number of hills, from what he described to me. But they work to his advantage and they have good surfaces. “It’s one of the better courses in the state, if not the best,” Blake mentions.

“ I ran a 15:46 overall,” he crows, and I nearly spit my drink as he continues, “which was a little disappointing, you know, you wanna be continuously dropping time and I ran a 15:42 last week but, you know, it is what it is.”

Steven Cross leads, Blake Lowery followed by Josh Collins at the 2015 FHSAA 3A State Championships (by Miamishots.smugmug.com)

And as for the team? “We all worked really hard this year,” he says. “I’ve had the same coach for the last three years which helped make a constant presence, and our school just got an assistant coach that I used to run with- she goes to UF now- and that was a really different dynamic. It was a unique experience, and I really enjoyed it.”

But running’s not all Blake enjoys doing. Triathlons are a summer hobby that he started when he was five - his favorite distance is the Olympic. For the last three years of high school, he played basketball religiously. “I maybe logged 5 miles a week," he says a bit self consciously. “I went to meets but I didn’t really run, so there was no training involved.”

Last track season was the first season he officially started running, in fact. Blake, it seems, is a natural, and like all runners, superstitious as well. “I have a pair of lucky socks for races,” he laughs, and I do too - both he and my brother share this trait. He tells me an anecdote about the time he forgot to put on his old pair of lucky socks for a track meet and ended up having a huge PR. “It was like the changing of the guard for the lucky socks,” he jokes. “They’ve got blue lettering on the back - which doesn’t match the school colors at all, you know, the Gainesville Purple Hurricanes, but I can’t do well without them.”  

He sounds dazed when I ask how it feels to be one of the fastest boys in the state. “It’s humbling,” he says. “It’s crazy knowing that you’re one of those top guys and people are looking at you going “I wanna get to that level” which honestly makes you work harder -especially because you wanna duplicate the results for track.”

The Gainesville senior becomes quiet before I ask, hesitantly, if there’s anything he wants to put out there for the world to see.

“You know, I feel like I oughta have some something inspiring to say but I’ve got nothing, honestly," he says apologetically, and I laugh. Because he doesn’t need to say something inspiring when everything from the way he runs to his humbleness post-race is inspiration enough.