Salute To Seniors: Haven Honeycutt (Asheville)

Photo by Doug Hague

Here is your chance to be featured in a stand-alone article on NCRunners. Answer these questions as fully as you can in anywhere from 2-4 sentences and send three pictures of you competing to jason.creasy11@gmail.com. If you also want us to tag your Twitter or Instagram in the article send along your handle as well. We'll run as many of these as we can throughout the month of July.

Haven Honeycutt (Asheville)

Personal Records High School
Outdoor
400 Meter Dash54.34
800 Meter Run2:04.07
1600 Meter Run4:19.94
One Mile Run4:26.65
3200 Meter Run9:18.73
Two Mile Run10:33.84
Indoor
1000 Meter Run2:44.10
1600 Meter Run4:23.20
One Mile Run4:24.72
3200 Meter Run9:23.56
Two Mile Run10:39.81
5000 Meter Run15:43.66
CC
5000 Meter Run15:55.47


What was your greatest moment while competing in high school? 

My greatest moment in running in high school was probably my race at the Bojangles track meet. Coming in with the win in a race as big as that with a huge PR that wasn't really supposed to happen. I feel really set in stone what track was for me and changed the mindset of my abilities. 

What is your biggest regret (related to T&F in high school) or what would you have done differently and why?

My biggest regret is thinking that every race was super important which in a sense they are but when I had a bad race it had huge negative effects on my mental ability to race afterward. It took all of my junior year to get back on track after some bad races. 

What will you miss the most about HS T&F/XC?

I'm gonna miss my teammates and coaches. Most people don't know but I'm adopted and I really struggled with it for years. My solution was Running and when I joined the high school team I joined a family and have never felt more at home. I'm really gonna miss that when its time to move.

What is some advice from incoming frosh and rising seniors on your high school team that you would like to share with them?

For the incoming freshman, all I can say is trust your coach. If you don't trust your coach then you don't trust your training and the training is how you improve. For the new seniors, they just need to remember that their actions are watched by everyone else on the team and they control the tone of how the team is gonna handle issues and successes. This is also their time to shine for many this is there last year in being apart of a team so leave nothing in reserves this is the last year to fight the good fight.

What was the hardest workout you did your entire high school career? Did you like it or did you dread it?

The hardest workout I have ever done in my life is a Collapsing rest workout. We start with 800 and go all the way down to either 100 or 200 meters. The hard part is the amount of rest you get. To start with you get 2 minutes and by the end, you have 15 seconds. I hated this workout so much. It isn't designed for you to run it well. It a mental workout and the first and only time I have done it I did it alone. After that, I told Coach Stroup I would never run that workout again and he sat and laughed but I never did run it again.

How did you make track/XC a very individual sport into more of a team sport?

So when I arrived my freshmen I was thrown to the wolves in XC and was thrown in with the top guys. I have never had as much fun as I did with the guys from that year's squad. Being in a pack that could run side by side in some races or running with a group of guys before daybreak rapping to a beat someone was playing with there phone I felt like we were really together and focused. Coach did a great job at giving team goals and less individual goals which really helped as a team drive us to do some incredible things.

Finally, what are your college plans? Will you be competing in college, where? What do you plan on studying? What do you have as career plans? 

My college plans are to head to East Carolina University and study engineering. I hope one day to design and build sailing boats. I find building things to be amazing and I have always loved the ocean so building sailboats sounded to me like the best choice. I have already signed for both the XC and track team. I'm super excited about that. I'm coming in with a really talented group and we should really make some waves while we wave our new Pirate flags.

Anything else you'd like to add or shoutouts you'd like to give?

I would really like to shoutout, my coach. Coach Stroup has been coaching at Asheville High for 20 plus years and has trained some of the greatest athletes in North Carolina. The number of state champions he has trained I can't tell you but if you took a look its something insane. If it wasn't for Stroup I doubt that I would be in the position to run in college let alone a D1 school like ECU. Stroup was there for everything training, school, and even my own personal struggles. His help has helped me be the person I am today. Stroup deserves to be shown in the spotlight just as much as every one of his athletes are.

Also, like to shoutout Isaac Preston and Terry Young. Terry or Adam was the senior that taught me how to act and race. I can't thank him enough for the lessons I learned from him. Isaac was both a coach and a target for me. A former athlete of Asheville high helped coach me and taught me how to pace and helped me with college recruiting with some big name schools. He was a target to me because he has the most school record and state titles of any athlete of Asheville high and I chased down his times like no one else. He still beat me at the end but having his times up in the locker room was my biggest challenge I could have been given.