Riverside Brookfield High School’s track and field season has been one of the many activities impacted due to the pandemic that the world has been facing since mid-March. There has been a lot of talk about whether or not sports including track and field should continue, be postponed, or be canceled throughout communities.

While many schools have decided to cancel winter sports altogether, others are taking the process slowly and are paying attention to how things change as time goes on to keep options open for spring activities, track and field being taken into consideration.

As of right now, some RB sports seasons have only been postponed. The track and field season being one of them, as the season traditionally begins in spring, but this school year will commence in the summer of 2021. Most in the RB community seem to be thrilled that seasons have yet to be canceled.

“I think it’s great we still have a season. Being able to have the prospect of a season after losing the season last year is so great for all the student-athletes,” Ian Robins, the head coach of the track and field team at RB, said.

While the season has been pushed back it seems as though track and field preseason training will still continue; however, this year it’ll be “on your own” rather than team training. On top of that, due to the delay of the season, there will be much more time to train, which coaches seem to favor.

“Young athletes need time to get stronger. Students also need to rest as well, appropriately rest. Extended periods (months or weeks) of rest or non-activity is not beneficial and does a disservice to their goals of becoming a better athlete. I realize some young athletes think they need to “rest up” for the season, but by not conditioning they are putting themselves at a higher risk of injury,” Blair Jensen, a track and field assistant coach, said.

With having to follow COVID-19 guidelines, training will be looking a bit different from previous years. 

“Training is a lot tougher right now. Because track is so linked to cross country, having that season run is a huge plus. The best thing that we can do now is promote self workouts in safe environments and hope that we have a safe place to have small team workouts as we get closer to the season. If that is not the case, we will send out at-home workouts to promote prior to the season,” Robins said.

Although things can always change, RB student-athletes and coaches seem to be very hopeful about upcoming and future races within the track and field team, whether it’s only teammates competing against each other or being able to compete against different schools.