TBO.com

By Bill Ward

It's one thing to be a dominant high school cross country runner but it's an entirely different matter to excel at the college level.

Just ask former local prep standouts Derek Wehunt of Sickles and Mark Parrish of Chamberlain. Both are among the best distance runners ever produced by Hillsborough County but as members of the University of Florida cross country and track teams, they can speak firsthand about the demands of being a college athlete.

"Everything is one or two steps up from what I did in high school," said Parrish, who last year finished second in the Class 4A state cross country championships. "In high school, if I ran 12 miles for a workout, it would be fairly relaxed. Now, if I go out to run 12 miles, 5 or 6 miles of it is at tempo (near race pace). It seems like all the runs we do are pretty fast."

Wehunt, a UF sophomore, agrees. In college, the training is intense.

"Coming in as a freshman, you know the training is going to be harder and faster but physically, it can still be a shock," Wehunt said. "What I told Mark to do was just take it day by day. If you have a tough workout Monday and you're thinking about how hard Tuesday is going to be, you may not get through Monday's run. You just have to worry about today."