Track Already

Track starts Monday, February 16th. Wow. That is my first reaction. If we had not have had consecutive days of unusually warm weather at the beginning of the month, there would still be a foot of snow on the ground. The last time I checked, it’s hard to run in the snow. But nonetheless, practice starts Monday.

I will not be attending this first practice, or the first couple of weeks of practice for that matter. This is because basketball is still going on. The state tournament for basketball gets over in mid-March, by then there have already been a couple of indoor track meets. I don’t like how sports overlap like this. Give me a week off at least before I have to commit to the everyday running of track. This same problem occurred during the fall. Football goes into November if a team makes it to the playoffs, but basketball practice starts in mid-November as well. I think that if my football team would have made it to the state semifinals and lost, I would have had the weekend off before basketball started. If we would have made it to the championship, I think I would have missed some basketball.

This is wrong. Sports have their own season and should not drag on, or start up early. Track is a spring sport, the last time I checked, February in Iowa is the farthest away from spring you can get. Also, overlapping of sports gives the athletes no breaks. Coaches are always saying how you need to be in good condition and how you need to be well rested and ready to go. But when I have no break between sports, I never get the chance to rest. It’s always full go. It’s everyday, with no exceptions. I don’t like how coaches expect players to instantly switch from one sport to the next. I feel that it takes at least a week for me to transition out of one sport, and into another. But I know that if I want to make it to state in track, I won’t be able to take a week off, I will have to start right away, just like always.