As Track and Field approaches, many track athletes are beginning their training. Track is a sport with a large number of events including sprinting, distance, and field events. While the weather is cold, track athletes will be practicing on the indoor track.

However, as soon as the weather becomes nice, they move to the outdoor track. Just like every sport, Track does have meets. These meets take place every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Similar to Cross-Country, the weather will not affect any of the athletes unless there is thunder and lighting.

Amanda Mierz, a Junior Track athlete, has some comments on how meets are run. “Track meets are based on how smoothly and quickly they can get to move the meet along. They last on average 6 hours,” Amanda said. “Not everyone runs at the meets. It’s usually decided with the effort you put forth at practice. Overall it’s based on your strengths you can provide to help your team win.”

“For conference meets, there can be two to three different teams. At an invitational, it can be up to 20 different teams”. From what Amanda Mierzycki said, track and cross-country are similar in many ways.

The track team waits out by Julia Street until the bus arrives. Once the team reaches their destination, the team runs a few laps together, the team captain gives a pep talk, and then the meet finally begins.

“Each meet is different but in the end how each person did in a race is based on a point system and whoever has the most totaled points by the end of the meet is ranked from first to however many teams there are,” stated Amanda Mierzycki.

Some athletes are doing a variety of things to prepare, but one may  personally taking a slightly different approach. To prepare, one can  run a mile on the indoor track at The Core everyday. In order to be a good Sprinter you will need strong legs. One can start  lifting leg weights and squatting to build up as much leg muscle as possible, since Track offers many different events which will involve having substantial upper body strength one may  also lift upper body weights as well. Core workouts will not only give you a nice six pack but also help you with stability while running.

After every workout, one needs stretch to make sure that no muscles will get pulled or strained. Failure to stretch will cause many injuries that could be season ending. Some injuries are shin splints (stress fracture on your shins), Plantar Fasciitis (pain in the bottom of your foot), Achilles Tendinitis (inflammation will occur and no blood will be able to access this area), IT Band Syndrome (inflammation in the side of your knee), or runner’s knee (pain in the knee while one is running).

Track is just like any other sport with teammates and coaches; it may open up many different opportunities. If running is not your thing, there’s the option of doing field events.

But like every sport, preparation is crucial. Knowing the injuries you may receive in sports will help you out a lot but stretching is always one of the most important aspects. One would much rather stretch and continue to compete in track than not stretch and receive a season ending injury.  As highlighted above, there are various ways that one can get prepared and train for track.