Track Team stays positive during first meet
On Friday the 9th of March, the SMIC-I track team ventured out to SAS Pudong for their first meet of the year. The weather was unexpectedly sunny, making it a great day for running. After weeks of intense training, ten members of the track team and two coaches, Mr. Costello and Mr. Cushing, arrived at SAS. The SMIC-I track team was joined by the host SAS team, as well as Concordia’s track team for an intimate but competitive day of racing.
The afternoon kicked off with the 3k race. Sunny Hu (12A), the only senior member at the meet that day, got ready for his first event that he had been practicing a while for. After 10 minutes or so, one runner after another had passed the finish line, with Sunny coming in 5th and Alexander Chu (10A) coming in 6th. Despite ending up with not-so-satisfying results, Sunny was glad he could integrate what he learned from his past mistakes into this race. “Well, at least I got to follow the pack, that’s what I didn’t do last time… Overall, it sort of reflects the training,” said Sunny. Alexander viewed his results on the race with a touch of humor: “I just kept my eyes closed the entire time because I find it harder to run when I realize that you know, a dozen people are waiting for me to finish, like ‘oh my god, this guy, come on, hurry up’.”
A few hours in, and the time came for the 400m race. New track members Alexander Chu, Albert Lu (10C), James Hoang (10A), Andy Chen (10C), and Luke Chang (10B) gathered at the starting line, all putting their best effort into running and finishing the challenging race. Albert Lu (10C) shared his thoughts about running the race in his first track meet, adopting a positive attitude: “I’m the last but I think it’s fine, cause, they have the advantages; I don’t have them. So there’s nothing to complain about with running last.”
Despite not finishing in the first few places, the team showed immense focus and dedication in all their events. Both coaches agreed that considering the lack of time for training, the team did a great job at their first meet of the year. Mr. Costello displayed faith in his team, stating, “I was very proud of our team today. It’s not the best of conditions; [it’s] quite cold, and, SAS, the first meet of the year, is a little bit chaotic, a little bit disorganized, but everybody stayed really positive. Everybody was paying attention to what was happening, they ran strong races. Ultimately we have a lot of good runs today, and have a lot of good things upon which to build the rest of the season moving forward.” Mr. Cushing felt similarly towards the performance of the team, saying, “It’s our first meet, we learned a lot of places we can grow…but overall, everyone gave their best and there’s a lot to be proud of today.”
The runners, as well as the coaches, shared what they noticed they could improve on for their next meet. “I feel like…the pace of my steps can be faster and I can keep it up better rather than failing to sprint at the end,” said Sunny. Albert believes that “more training, more endurance training, more intervals” will allow him to do better next time. Finally, Alexander left us with his simple but realistic motto: “Run faster.”
Featured Image – Andy Chen and Alexander Chu warm up before the race Courtesy of Rene van Steenbergen