Track Season Preview

Spring is here and that means winter and the cold is over. With the end of winter sports and activities, finally, the spring ones are here. One of the many sports starting up is track and field. The track is made up of many different running events both with and without a team and lots of different distances. Running anywhere from 1 ⁄ 4 of a lap to 8 laps and everything in between. And that’s excluding all the hurdles on the tracks, as well as all the throwing and jumping. Throwing includes shotput and discus, and high jumps and long jumps. At the meet for SouthEast Polk, Jonas VanDis also broke the school record for the mile, running 4:17. 

Track and field is a sport that while based on individual times and speeds, also requires a lot of teamwork. Most of the running events in track involve a group of 4 kids who hand off a metal or plastic baton to the next runner, meaning that working together matters a lot. It takes multiple events of running, jumping, and throwing to win a meet. Each event won counts towards a total at the end, and the one with the most wins the meet and most of the times rise in rankings for track and field. And with a recent win at the last indoor meet of the season at Wartburg, our team is starting strong. And with a varsity and junior varsity home meet at Waukee, the team is off to a very strong start. 

And many students have broken records even with so much of the season left. Junior Jonas VanDis broke the 800-meter indoor record for the school. And sophomore Tavian White broke the record for the 55-meter high hurdle race. Junior Terrence Brakkens talked about getting to run outside for practice. “My favorite part of practice definitely has to be running on the field itself, being able to have the opportunity to enhance my skills,” Brakkens said. Junior Victor Njane likes being with the team during the beginning of practice. “I like the warmup jog and stretch because that’s when the team is the closest,” he said. And Junior Gavin Lambertsen enjoys going to the meets with friends. “Meets are my favorite because I get to compete and get better with my friends,” he said.