Bryan Garcia On The Fast Track To Successful Spartan Career

Growing up in Tampa, Fla., Bryan Garcia is well on his way to becoming The University of Tampa's next great runner. Garcia, in just his first collegiate race, helped Tampa's men's cross country team to a first place finish for the first time in program history.

He finished 12th out of 94 runners and was the first freshman out of all male participants to cross the finish line with a time of 23.37.31, in the Early Bird Classic which was hosted by UT, at Dover Trails.

"This was a good win and I'm happy I could help the team. I didn't win anything in high school and this was the first time UT as well as myself has won something in a long time," commented Garcia.

Since joining UT, Garcia's been training hard with head men's coach Dror Vaknin. Garcia says, "I put a lot more miles in this summer than I did last. Even though workouts are a lot tougher, I'm in the best shape ever and things are good. The hard work definitely has paid off."

He also competed in the Florida Tech Invite where he finished eighth out of 93 runners posting a time of 26.48.32. He also ran in the Gator Invitational, placing 60th out of 201 with a time of 27.27.89, in a competition that had Division I runners.

He posted a 26.48.32 and a 27.27.89 in the races. Even though his time was longer in the Gator Invitational than his previous races Garcia commented, "I am proud of what I ran because the course had four big hills and I made first out of all the freshmen in the conference.

When asked about the transition from high school running toward college, Garcia replied, "It's tough running a mile and half more and I'm still trying to get a hold of it." In high school, Garcia only had to run a 5k rather than an 8k, which is the standard course for collegiate cross country runners.

Garcia thanks his high school coach Mark Altimari for his accomplishments. Garcia boasted about his head coach at Robinson High saying, "It was great playing for coach Altimari because he was a great mentor and guy. I love him."

Under coach Altimari, Garcia won runner of the year for his school in 2009. He is the only person in school history to run under 17 minutes in a 5k multiples times in a season and ran under 16 minutes in the 5k, on one occasion.

Early in his career, Garcia was known as "injury prone" because he kept getting hurt. He returned halfway through his sophomore campaign and ended up breaking the mile in less than five minutes towards the end of the season. At the end of the year, he won the 2008 Perseverance Award at Robinson High. Bryan said, "It wasn't until my junior year when I started to take cross country more seriously."

In just his first year of high school track he was named the captain of the team. "I wanted to play football but I was only 115 pounds," says Garcia. Then he was named captain of the cross country team his junior and senior year. Garcia first started running track in the sixth grade, which he credits to his mom. Garcia said, "My mom told me I was skinny and joining track would be good for me."

Garcia's goals for the year are to win the freshman runner of the year for the Sunshine State Conference and run under 26 minutes in the 8k. Brandon Stower, a sophomore at UT and Garcia's teammate, believes that he can accomplish those goals. Stower replied, "Bryan definitely can win the runner of the year because he is a very motivated and hard working runner as well as a team guy. We have a lot of confidence in ourselves and our teammates."

Written by Rashad Callaway (SPM 385)