Student Athletes here on campus have their work cut out for them. Balancing school and an extracurricular sport is a difficult task that not everyone can handle. Athletes involved in cross country have had it especially difficult in the past due to their exceedingly early starts, but coaches this year have looked to make the lives of their runners much less stressful.
In past years, due to heat and a lack of time, cross country practices began at five in the morning. This early start put a lot of pressure on the runners and their coaches, having to wake up in time to make it to practice and work out before beginning their school day. This year, in an effort to ease the students’ and coaches’ burdens, the coaches decided to create a locker class. This class period takes up the students’ first hour, and allows them to start practice an hour later. Coach Jeff Gurecki says, “That extra hour doesn’t seem like a lot, but when it’s compounded each and every day that we run it’s a huge sacrifice…”
Now that the runners do not have to sacrifice that hour of sleep, they are able to do more with the time they have. Junior Anuj Iyer says that “It’s been much nicer on my sleep schedule…[and] it’s given me more time at night to do what I want to do.” With extra time and sleep Iyer is able to perform better physically and academically.
This extra sleep does not only allow runners to perform more tasks outside of cross country, it’s allowed them to be more ready to practice and improve their skills as runners. Though they have not started competing yet in this season Gurecki has already seen that they are “less lethargic” during their morning practices.
Senior Sara Jones, a six year member of cross country, has seen these benefits in her running. She says that “I’m more awake, and I feel like I’m better at running when I’m more awake.” This sleep allowed her to perform better in her timed practice runs, and will continue to allow her to perform better throughout the season.
This new locker class has many benefits to offer for each student taking it, and as the season progresses the use of the class will change. Gurecki said, “…the other thing we get from it is the availability to have split practices.” Once the weather cools down these split practices will allow the runners to weight train each morning and run after school. This weight training alongside their runs will allow each runner to improve their running times, technique, and overall performance as they move to compete this year.
