“The Faster I Run, the Faster It’s Over”
M. Owens
Senior Alex Perumal sprints off of the blocks.
Track is an after school sport that practices Monday through Friday for one hard hour. For a sport with so many contenders, it gets tricky for the team to get a reasonable amount of athletes.
At last Friday’s practice, all of the athletes warmed up by running constant laps around the track.
Once, they’ve all finished their laps, pole vaulters practice their technique across the football field, sprinters practice hurdles, the long distance runners continue to run laps after the warm up. Events consist of long jump, high jump, pole vaulting, shot-put, discus, various long distances, sprints, and relays.
While both meets and practices seem intense and equal, Alex Perumal, a senior who participates in the 400 meter and the 4x400 relay, believes that the meets and practiced are very different.
“During practice it’s more of a challenge to better yourself and how to better your running form. There’s actually a lot of technique that goes into running,” he said.
The competition in meets is tough which can cause athletes to get discouraged by pressure. In trying to solve this problem, the track coaches have a “hell week” in the beginning of the season, where track teams start off with extremely difficult practices to try to drop the mainstream competitors in hopes to keep and train the athletes who truly appreciate track and will be willing to endure difficult practices to beat their own personal goals in upcoming meets.
“Competition, I think is exciting but at the same time it’s nerve racking. I always tell myself ‘the faster I run, the faster it’s over," said Perumal.
"At the end of the day, it’s how well you perform when the sound of that gun goes off,” said Perumal.
With activities ranging from 100 meters to pole vaulting, this activity takes skill and devotion.
“Right before a race starts, we all complain about how we are slow and don’t want to race against fast people. Then after a race, we congratulate each other,” said Senior Isabella Ianora.
Freshman Marly Flores thinks that mosts runner’s goal is to end up “being in state, but hope for NCS. I would like to end up running in state,” said Flores.
The hard training ends up being all worth while because “Las Lomas moves the most people to the NCS meet and The State meet which is what actually counts,” said senior Henry Kiragu.
All the blood, sweat and tears aside there is a sense of community within this solo sport.
“Ever since I’ve been here I’ve tried to make it more of a family type environment, even though it is technically an individual sport,” said coach Dax.
It is a very inclusive sport. Freshman Riley Pellmen said, ”The best part about track is probably the people. Everyone is super nice and really excited to be here.”
