Bloomquist keeps it orange

Fairfield senior speedster Ashley Bloomquist signed with Wartburg Friday, officially deciding to take her talents to Waverly. Bloomquist, who always makes time for The Ledger after her exhausting runs, spoke about her decision while watching the Van Buren/Pella Christian game later that evening.

What will you study and run?

I'm going for Biology, maybe some pre-med classes, and I'm going to run cross country and track both.

What led to your choice?

I think I chose Wartburg because it feels more like home to me than a lot of other places and that was important. Going into my search for a college I wanted a place that felt like home since I'm more of a homebody and Wartburg was that for me.

Tell us about their program.

I like their coach. He is very understanding and he really knows a lot about what he's doing and they are really successful as a team while being close friends.

How do you expect to fall in line with the team itself?

The first year I'm going to try to just get used to everything and hopefully after that, I can settle in and start working on getting faster and managing my time better and becoming more and more successful as time goes on.

What time do you need to run to be competitive at the college level?

I'll probably be running longer distances. They have the 5k and 10k along with the 3,000 which is what I run now in track. On the cross country side of things, instead of the 5k they run in high school they have a 6k. I don't think adjusting will be hard and once I get on thier training program it should be easy to shed time off of my races.

How much are you running and how much will you next year?

Right now after basketball practice is over I'll run anywhere from 3-5 miles on the treadmill, just keeping it at a nice easy pace. In college, you start out running what you would have run in high school each week which for me is only 30-35, maybe 40 miles a week. Eventually they will build me up to 50-60 miles per week during cross country and a little less than that for track, depending on what I'm running.

Does your treadmill have any tread left?

My treadmill is actually 18 years old, as old as I am, but I've been running at the Rec because I can just stay there after practice and they have some pretty nice equipment there. When I run at home it's in my basement all by myself.

Thank yous?

I want to thank my coach (Jerrod Belzer). Obviously I wouldn't be anywhere close to where I am without him and his infinite wisdom. He has helped me in so many ways, track, cross, school, life, all of those things and he is like family to me. Also the community. It's really hard to balance everything as a student-athlete, but when you have a community like Fairfield, you can focus on what you need to do now and they'll support you. Community support is one of the biggest things for me.

Excited to keep all the orange in your wardrobe?

Yes I am! (with a laugh)