With the roster announced on November 1 and the first meet scheduled for Friday, November 21, the indoor track and field team is preparing for a long, competitive season that will run through February. The winter will bring new competition and plenty of chances for the athletes to improve from last year.
“With such a long season ahead, it’ll be a challenge to just stay driven throughout these next several months,” junior Felicity North said.
North will be competing in a variety of events, including the 55 hurdles, 800, 500, high jump, long jump, and shot put.
“In order to keep motivation high, I need to try to focus on always getting better and getting a new PR almost every week.” Said North.
As the only hurdler on the team, North hopes to get points in that event as well as in the 500, which she has been competing in since freshman year. In contrast to North, junior Taylor Hayes is more of an explosive sprinter and prefers her short distance events of the 55, 300, 4×400, and 4×200 to long distance ones. She anticipates her biggest challenge to be the fact that Green Level no longer competes in the same conference as they have for the past several years.
“Being in a new conference means that I don’t necessarily know how fast my competition will be anymore,” she said. “But despite of that, I’m really hoping to be a conference champion this year in one of my events.” Hayes hopes to push the team to the best of their ability, making sure that no one’s head gets in the way of what she knows they are capable of doing.
Both North and Hayes agree on the fact that the biggest meet of the season will be the Virginia Showcase on January 16-18 at Virginia Beach Sports Center.
“It’s the biggest high school meet where most national records get broken. All these people come from different states to compete, and we run on a banked track, which is really nice,” North says, referencing the track design with raised or tilted curves that allows runners to maintain their high speeds through the turns by counteracting the centrifugal force pulling them outwards.
With a new conference and big meets ahead, the indoor track team is looking forward to a full season of competition, improvement, and new challenges as they work to make this winter a successful one.
