By: Jonathan Sager, Staff Writer
With summer just days away, many students are looking forward to relaxing over the summer and taking their foot off the gas pedal. Many student athletes, however, have to continue training and practicing over the summer in order not to lose any progress and to continue to improve themselves over the summer. For this reason, over the summer, River Hill’s cross country team will be hosting practices every day over summer break until their tryouts on August 12.
River Hill cross country is coming off an incredibly successful season. The boys won the Maryland state championship for the 2A region, and the girls team finished fourth in the state. In order to maintain the high level of success seen in previous seasons, however, it is imperative that the team practices over the summer so that the progress and the skills developed in the previous season are not lost.
Captain and rising senior Anthony Chester explains how, “if you don’t practice over the summer, you’ll lose a lot of progress that you may have gained over the school year.” Chester also claims that “practicing every day is also a good way to improve and meet goals, since while others are resting, our team will be hard at work practicing.” Additionally, another captain and rising senior Jayden Brown will be holding practices during the evening, as he states, “during the summer a lot of people do not want to wake up early in the morning.”
Practices will start at 8:00 on June 22, and will continue until official practices begin in August. These practices will not be led by the coaches but by the captains of the cross country team. The practices will be located near the tennis courts, on the blacktop. Training during practices will consist of multiple aspects. For the majority of practice, athletes will partake in a run whose mileage depends on experience on the team. Once a week, there will be a workout focused more on speed and a long run focused more on endurance. Before each workout, athletes will also complete a warmup lap around the school campus as well as dynamic stretches to loosen up muscles and prepare for the day’s run. Afterwards, runners will complete a set of push-ups and stretch in order to cool down.
Additionally, on certain days of the week, additional workouts will also be assigned. On Monday, Friday, and Tuesday, runners will practice sprints to build speed, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, strength training exercises will also be completed.
Many members of the cross-country team view summer workouts as an invaluable experience. Rising senior Arthur Wang joined cross country last year for the first time and hopes that participating in these summer workouts will “be a chance to improve times for next season and make the team stronger for next year.” Next year, the cross country coaches are also implementing a time trial system in which those boys who cannot run 1.5 miles in 11:30 minutes will be cut from the team, along with girls who cannot run 1.5 miles in 15:25 minutes. Wang views these practices as a way to “ensure that I don’t get cut from the team next year by preparing over the summer.”
Overall, summer cross country practices are an integral part of a successful cross country season as they allow for athletes to get in better shape and prepare for a tough season ahead of schedule.