Orin May begins to run for his leg as the relay as Jonah Henning gets ready to pass him the baton to improve their transition time and increase their speed at Tuesday morning’s running practice at the University of Lethbridge.
The Lethbridge College Kodiaks men’s track team is training hard to ensure they can hold onto their first-place spot in the ACAC competition.
To prepare for track meets, the Kodiaks practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the University of Lethbridge.
The team also meets Mondays and Wednesdays for strength training.
Track team member Cole Guilbert says, at these practices, the team has been training hard which makes him excited for the rest of the meets this season.
He says coaches including assistant coach Aaron Hernandez are pushing the team.
Thanks to a strong roster of healthy bodies, the team is responding positively.
“Aaron’s got guys going pretty hard. I think the practice has been going pretty well. I think with the team’s depth this year, we’ve got a good team to compete both long distance and then the relays as well,” says Guilbert.
Hernandez says the team has built a solid athletic base and is now working on technical skills and power.
“We’re out of the phase where we’re trying to build up a lot of cardio and now, we’re working on more technical work out of the blocks and then a lot of work in the relay making sure our exchanges are right when it comes to getting the baton around,” says Hernandez.
Clean form and quick use of starting blocks and batons are crucial for short-distance events.
The faster a racer can launch themselves out of a starting block or how smoothly a racer can shift the baton from one teammate to another is important as both allow the runner to get up to top speed quickly.
In races that last seconds, the speed at which athletes can do these skills is almost as crucial as athletes’ abilities to run at high speeds and generate large bursts of power, which the Kodiaks are also focusing on.
This speed work seems to be paying off for the Kodiaks who had a record-breaking first meet of the season.
Rookie Cooper Williams broke the school record in the 3,000 metre race with a time of 8:56.15. Another rookie, Owen Stewart, broke the 1,000 metre record with a time of 2:38.63.
The team’s relay work has also paid off for the Kodiaks, especially in the 4 x 200 metre race where Gunnar Gibb, Jack Bentley, Jonah Henning and Orin May broke not only the Lethbridge College record but the ACAC division record. The team clocked in with a collective time of 1:37.84.
Bentley feels the team did a good job passing the baton which enabled them to go for this record.
These three record-breaking races contributed to the Kodiaks taking an 11-point lead over the second-place Red Deer Polytechnic Kings.
Guilbert feels keeping the team’s level of fitness up throughout the season is important in order to keep the team fresh to compete.
To keep well-conditioned, athletes on the team, especially those who race in long-distance events, stay in shape by completing long, slow runs once or twice a week to ensure they maintain the strong base of fitness that was built earlier in the season.
Because of this high training load, athletes diligently stretch and warm up before completing their working sets at running or weight training practices.
The team also ensures they complete exercises that are not running-related but still elevate their heart rate and put less stress on muscles used for running.
This high effort displayed by members of the team is fueled by the team’s hunger to stay in the top spot and show the league their speed at ACAC Championships.
The Kodiak’s indoor track season continues with one Grand Prix meet in Red Deer on February 18 before they return to Edmonton in late March for ACAC championships.
