Spikes on and racers readied, track and field prepares for indoor State, March 23, and the beginning of their outdoor season with meets against Crown Point April 2 for the boys and April 4 for the girls.

“I’m just excited for the season,” Kwaku Awuah, junior, said. “I think our four-by-four is going to be really good, plus our individual runners, too.”

For sprinters, the beginning of the week tends to be high volume sprints, while the end is in preparation for meets. When the meets switch to during the week as well, the practices leading up to them prepare for the races and the practice after is a recovery practice.

“I hope to decrease my 200 time by one or two seconds,” Keya Patel, sophomore, said. “I struggle with accelerating quickly, which is super important in the short sprint races, and I’m going to improve that by doing drills specifically for acceleration.”

At throwing practice, they get a few practice throws in after warming up. Then they go onto their full out throws, and if needed they train in the weight room as well.

“My favorite part is probably being around all the throwers, and seeing them improve, as well as myself improve,” Matthew Keevers, senior, said.

While the points from placing in events add up and get the team a win as a whole, it’s usually an individual sport where a racer has to hold themselves accountable for how they do. Sometimes an athlete has other team members competing with themselves, but when they are doing their event, the only person an athlete can count on is themselves.

“Track is really mental since it’s such an individual sport,” Kylee Marshall, senior, said. “You don’t have somebody to blame when something goes wrong. If you do that, then it’s all on you.”

Ralph Brown, senior, agrees that track is a sport where the athlete needs to be proactive in order to do good for themselves.

“A team is fun and relays are cool, as well as fun every once in a while, but in a basketball game sometimes all you can do is sit and hope that somebody else does well,” Brown said. “In an individual sport, it is nerve-racking because I feel like in a team sport you can trick yourself into thinking that ‘we got this’ but in an individual sport there’s no one else. I like that, though.”

Athletes can also have off days where the athlete might feel like they should have done better, whether it’s  from the amount of effort they put in or the result they got out of the event.

“I just remind myself that I know what I’m capable of,” Marshall said. “Everybody has a bad day, so even if I have one bad day that doesn’t define my performance or abilities.”

Running: 

– 4×4 relay

      – pass the baton among

3 other teammates

-100 m

– 200 m

– 400 m

– 800 m

– 1600 m (the mile)

-3200 m

– 100 m hurdles

-300 m hurdles

Throwing:

– Discus and shot put

– Warm up throws

– 3 flies (throws) to throw as far as possible *For each fly, every person goes in a row*

– Repeat this process until all 3 are done