At long last, Josh Izewski is finally healthy. The redshirt senior has battled through injuries in almost every season of his collegiate career, struggling to stay out of the trainer’s room. Now, finally ready for competition, he can simply focus on running as the Gators head to Nashville, Tenn., for the Southeastern Conference Championships on Friday.
In high school, Izewski was an all-state swimmer in Doylestown, Penn. But when he suffered a torn muscle in his back, he began running to stay in shape.
After winning the 3K Indoor Championship at states during his senior year, Izewski decided to hang up his Speedo and lace up a pair of running shoes. He enrolled at Florida in fall 2008.
In his first season, Izewski showed potential, earning SEC Freshman of the Week honors after his first collegiate race. However, a few days later, he began to feel an unfamiliar twinge.
“A week later, my Achilles started bothering me a lot,” Izewski said. “I tried to run through it.”
Unfortunately, his inflamed Achilles led coaches to shut him down for the remainder of his freshman season. He received a medical redshirt.
Then, following a promising redshirt freshman season, Izewski spent the next two years tormented by a chronic quadriceps injury.
“I couldn’t lift my leg up,” he said. “It was bad. I had to swim and bike probably for three weeks. Then, it was kind of on and off from there until the end of the season.”
After many hours of treatment and recovery, Izewski entered his final season healthy.
“It’s helped me to stay positive and to not let the lows get too low and the highs get too high,” he said. “When you get hurt, it’s going to happen. Don’t let yourself get too low about it. Just come in for treatment, do what you can to fix it, and you will get better and you will be back.”
Izewski finished fourth in the Mountain Dew Invitational on Sept. 15. In his final season, his health is more important than ever.
“It’s definitely my last SEC cross country race,” he said. “I know that coming into the race and I know that I just want to perform the best that I can this year because there’s not going to be another year to run. And I can’t say, ‘Oh, well next year I’ll run better.’”
Izewski and junior Mark Parrish — who finished 16th at Pre-Nationals two weeks ago — are looking to lead Florida to its first SEC title in 25 years.
“Being the University of Florida, we understand that year in, year out, you need to be in contention for an SEC title and certainly for the national championship,” coach Paul Spangler said. “And the athletes know that, too.”
The men will look to claim their first SEC Championship since 1987, while the women hope to clinch their third title in the past four years.
