Jonah Bazerkanian '23 Recruiting Profile

I am an individual who sets clear goals, determines how to achieve them and proceeds to execute against the plan to be successful.  Since my first year of running club at seven years old, I have strived for success. I competed in every AAU or USATF youth cross country championship until I started high school. My first championship race is when I truly realized I can excel at this sport and really fell in love with it. Since then I have improved tremendously, earning All American one year at AAU Championship. Going into high school I made varsity as the only freshman on the team, with all other runners being primarily seniors. The team and I made it all the way to D2 CIF Finals in the highly competitive Southern Section in California.  I was incredibly motivated and ready for track, where I thrive on racing the one mile and 800.   Sadly, the season was cut short, but I had a great first race at the Don Green Invitational frosh soph mile, which I won with more than 150 freshman and sophomore competitors.  

Although I was clearly disappointed to miss my freshman season due to Covid closure, I continued to strive for greatness, training six days per week on my own. In looking back at my training times, I’ve realized that times I’ve been running at my self-driven practice were times from my best races freshman year.  I was able to register for one out of state cross country invitational, Desert Twilight in Arizona, where I ran unattached and achieved a PR in the 5k despite no team training or real speedwork without a track. I am excited to go back to team practices and believe with my training and potential this will be an incredible season.  In addition to running daily, I like to do core strength on my own at least 3 days a week to complement my training. Previously, before high school, I noticed my running form was not good as I grew, so I trained at Sports Academy to improve my form, but also learned core strength workouts there that I have maintained since.