Athletes Are Excited As Indoor Track Kicks Off for the 2016-2017 Season
by Symbria Woodley for Walkersville High School Lion’s Pride
When you live in this country you know that the three major sports are football, basketball, and baseball. While track and field is considered a minor sport in the United States, having a good foundation in can truly help any athlete in his or her chosen athletic discipline. With each different track and field event, great athletic skills can be acquired and easily applied to one or more of the major sports.
For the past few years the Walkersville track team have grown in many various ways: talent, people, laughter, friendships, and many wins. With indoor track starting up, it has many people excited. There has been an additional amount of students who have joined the track team this season.
It is starting to get colder outside and because the school does not have an indoor track, the team has to run outside on the cold days.
“I hate running in the cold; it makes it harder for me to run. My lungs feel like they’re going to collapse on me. I do think it helps a little because the more you run and the faster you run, your body will eventually start to warm up and you will get used to it,” said senior Ashley Yeboah.
However, running in the cold is not the only thing that affects performance. Many students started to slack over the summer and not exercise to keep their stamina up to par. Therefore when this season started, many students had a hard time getting back to their usual routine, which is why a few past runners, junior Autumn Parson and senior Justin Herman, started pre-season work outs after school which benefited students such as seniors Brian Rumendez, Jeff Gomez, junior Kayla Reid, and myself.
“It sucks now, but you’ll love it later. I expect a great season, we have great additions to our new team and we have players coming so I expect nothing but dubs [wins],” said senior Brian Rumendez.
In agreement with Rumendez, senior Jackie Himenez said “For the season, I really hope that our team as a whole improves with their times and that we have more people who qualify for county and regional meets. I think we will definitely do better this year because our coaches have been pushing us harder and as a whole we all seem more motivated to do better this year.” Which is exactly why track is such an important sport. Track is running; this is what every sport has.”
However, many people think running is not that important, seeing it only as a component of other sports. This is, of course, the area where most people see a good correlation as why track can benefit an athlete who is focused on another sport. Being fast will almost always be a benefit in any sport you compete in. In track, by learning proper running form, explosiveness, stride length, body position, knee lift, and arm carry, all are essential components in running a route in football, getting to the goal in soccer, running the bases in baseball or ending a fast break on the basketball court.
The first meet is December 9th against Boonsboro at Hagerstown Community College.
