Students who enjoy running the track during the spring don’t have to wait until spring anymore. Indoor track gives student athletes the option to keep up with their conditioning or train for an outdoor season sport.

     Indoor track is considered a club and has existed for over ten years. The club closely resembles a regular season sport with general practice days beginning at 2:45 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday. One of the head coaches, Jimmy Cachola stated that practices will include running and drills, along with some athletes working on relay handoffs.

     With the sport taking place during the winter, Cachola still plans on practicing outside, “unless the cold or snow is really bad.”  He claims that he prefers athletes to run outside rather than on the cement inside the schools.

     There are five regular season meets, not including regional or state championships, which will always take place on Fridays at 4:00 p.m. at Essex Community College. The last regular season meet will be on a Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m.

     According to Cachola, the rules of indoor track are the same as outdoor. He claims that the only thing that differs is the track size which depends on the facility; at essex it is a 160 meters compared to the typical 400 meter outdoor track. Although at the state championship, it will be the full 400 meters. The other difference is that indoor doesn’t offer triple jump, long jump and discuss, everything else is the same as outdoor.

     Last year, student athletes could participate in a school sport along with this club. This year, it is now a county requirement that students will not be allowed to play another sport during the indoor track season because “students are getting pulled in so many different directions and the board of education is worried that they’re hurting athletes and not giving them enough time to recover,” says Cachola. 

    He continues that “we don’t have say on outside of school sports, such as clubs, all we can do is recommend to not do too much on your body.” The rule wasn’t in place last year because it used to be only meets, and when we only had meets, they didn’t care explains coach. He goes on, but now that we do a little bit of training, they don’t want to overlap sports.

     Since the club is not a school sanctioned sport, there will be no pay to play of $100, but a possible maximum amount of $60 according to Cachola to pay for meets and for a bus, if we can get one. The pay to play would go to the school system, when the other cash would go directly to the indoor track program, such as “our uniforms, banquet, bus rides, and other personal things,” says coach.

     Currently there are close to 30 students signed up and Cachola claims he is anticipating a total of about 50. He intends to have one bus which will be co-ed so that “we can all get there as a team.”  44 students is the max amount allowed for one bus, although coach said he “doesn’t believe everyone will go to every meet.”