Violet
Welcome back to indoor track, New Hampshire! For those who don’t know me, I’m Violet Sullivan, a senior captain and distance runner for Exeter High School. We ended last track season this past spring with the Division 1 Championship! A very exciting and confidence-building experience, as was the end of this cross country season with the MOC title. With the fall fading into winter, and our first snowstorm a few weeks ago (bring it on!!!), we’re ready for weekends at UNH meets and bundling up in between. Indoor track is a great season as we can experience the raging yet beautiful NH winters, but get to run, throw, or jump inside to still get the competition, experience, and stats. As for our team, we just started practice on last week after school. As always, the first few days are busy with learning the names of new freshmen, starting to organize into event groups, and get used to hurrying up outside to finish before the sun sets. We have 20 freshmen girls, 15 boys, and 95 total athletes (55 girls and 45 boys) so our coaches have their hands full!
Distance and mid-distance kids, our year-round runners, are just getting back from our break after cross country. The girls are feeling great and excited to see what we can do after our MOC title last month, and the boys are looking strong too. The cool part about track is that our cross country teams split into the shorter and longer distance events. We also added in some freshmen, new sophomores and other runners who did other fall sports. We’re looking forward to building up to shorter races this winter and spring while embracing the weather outside!
Our sprinters, jumpers, and throwers have been training in a mix of inside and outside. They’ve been lifting in the weight room, watching videos, practicing form and relays, and going outside to run while the track and parking lots are still clear. Dante will go into more detail with this later.
Question of the week:
What are you most looking forward to this indoor track season?
Josh Antal (senior, throwing): “I’m looking forward to see how much improvement everyone has at the end of the season compared to the beginning.”
Autumn Agri (sophomore, sprinting): “I’m looking forward to some strong relay teams for the 4×200 and 4×400.”
Thomas Vanderslice (senior, distance): “I’m most looking forward to watching my team progress, we had some good young talent last year and I have high hopes for what they can achieve this year”
Dante
Welcome back again to runners, throwers, and jumpers all around New Hampshire. I’m Dante Radigonda, junior sprinter from Exeter High School. Violet brought me up earlier, and I’m here to make it clear that the boys’ team for Exeter had a great first 2 weeks of practice to kick off the indoor season. Out of the 40 of us total boys, 15 are incoming freshman, a handful coming off their first cross country season. The boys team is looking very strong, and everyone is giving it their best effort whether it be indoors, in the weight room, or on a freezing track that has yet to succumb to a major snow storm. The team is well balanced with sprinters, distance, jumpers, and throwers all around, and everyone will certainly be ready for the first meet of the season, which is just two weeks away. This boys’ team has a lot of potential, and they’re doing everything they can to achieve it.
All and all everything that needs to be done will be done. Sprinters are working on their block starts and hand offs. Throwers are in the weight room and are lifting big weights, and are making sure to perfect their motions. Long distance runners are taking advantage of the relative high 30s/low 40s temperatures to rack up mileage outside. The jumpers are taking advantage of plyometrics and the new jumpers are studying up on their form. This is going to be a great indoor season for the Boys and Girls Indoor Exeter Track and Field Team.
Question Of the Week:
What are you excited for in the upcoming season?
Jake Winslow (Senior, Distance) : “I’m looking forward to big meets such as New England Championships, Nationals, and other invitationals where the races will be highly competitive and help contribute to my experience as a runner.”
Marshal Burns (Senior, Sprinter) : “I’m excited for what’s ahead. I wasn’t always a track athlete, so joining sophomore year left me with a lot to learn. I really like the type of grind track brings. With this upcoming season, I hope to compete with the best cause I’ve put in a lot of work to get to where I am.”
Tommy Lamar (Junior, Jumper) : “I’m excited to get out there and smash my PR’s, and hopefully come up big at states.”