The indoor season of Track and Field has come to a close with the indoor conference that took place on March 15th and 16th. The conference was held at the indoor track facility at Olivet Nazarene University and occurred over the course of two days. On Friday evening, the Boys Track Team competed, having many successful races and events. Some such events include the JV 4x400 relay, in which the boys relay team placed first in their heat. For the girls competition on Saturday, the JV 4x400 relay team won their heat as well. Let’s take a look at the thought process for two of the 4x400 athletes from each team.

Ashton Zopf- Sophomore 

Q: Were there any other events that you ran? 

A: in addition to the 4 x 400 meter relay, I ran in the 60 meter hurdles.

Q: What preparation went into getting ready for this meet? How often did you practice?

A: We’ve been preparing for this meet since before the official start of the season. During our winter training, daily practices, and weekly track meets since February, we’ve been constantly tracking ourselves and pushing for faster times.

Q: How did you feel before the race? Nervous? Excited? Calm?

A: For me, the 4 x 400 is always the most nerve-racking race I have to run. Beforehand, I always stress over just how physically demanding the race will be.

Q: What was your thought half way through the race?

A: Halfway through the race, the only thought going through my mind was the fact that I needed to keep up with the person in front of me. During a race, you have no time to think about anything other than maintaining the motivation to push yourself forward.

Q: How did you pace yourself?

A: Once I got handed the baton, I only focused on catching up to the person behind me, so I ran full speed during the first lap. By the second lap, I started to tire out, so I trailed close behind him until I handed off the baton.

Q: How did you feel after the race?

A: Once I finished my portion of the race, I felt exhausted. My body hurt. I was so fatigued that I could barely walk, but I felt satisfied knowing I closed the gap and put our team in a spot to win the race.

Q: Did you accomplish your goal for the race?

A: I did accomplish my goal. I wanted to run a personal best for the season, and I beat my previous time by almost 2 seconds.

Q: What was your motivation to push yourself and do well? 

A: While running the race, I figured I had no other choice but to push myself. If I’m going to run a race, especially a relay, I feel as though I have no reason not to try my hardest to support my team.

Q:What is the biggest piece of advice that someone gave you? 

A: A friend told me last year, “The mind quits before the body does.” He told me to find someone or something to race for, and keep that in mind as motivation to push harder.

Sarah Escalona- Sophomore 

Q: We’re there any other events that you ran? 

A: The 4x800, 800, and 4x400.

Q: What preparation went into getting ready for this meet? How often did you practice?

A: I practiced every day of the week leading up to the meet. My team and I did speed twice a week, long runs twice a week, and an easy run the Friday before the meet.

Q: How did you feel before the race? Nervous? Excited? Calm?

A: I felt very excited to be able to run the events that I was running and I felt prepared.

Q: What was your thought half way through the race?

A: My only thought was finishing the race I was in and I was hyper aware of the time.

Q: How did you pace yourself?

A: I went based off of adrenaline with no true pacing and went off of times being read out by coaches or parents around me.

Q: How did you feel after the race?

A: I felt accomplished and extremely tired after running each race, knowing I put in my best.

Q: Did you accomplish your goal for the race?

A: I did. I received a PR for my 800 time and a PR for my 400 time.

Q: What was your motivation to push yourself and do well? 

A: My motivation was getting a PR and not getting last.

Q:What is the biggest piece of advice that someone gave you? 

A: My parents always said to never look back and keep my head forward towards my destination.

Great job to both teams for their amazing performances at indoor conference. Good luck in the outdoor season! 

Recently with SATs, AP testing, spring showers, and the end of the school year, I've noticed a lot of my classmates have seemed kind of burnt out. They are also simply having a hard time explaining how they feel in a healthy way, so they take out their stress by overworking themselves or even giving up on tasks that matter to them. With this spring slump, I realized over Spring Break how important it is to take care of the people around you. I was given the resource in the past by Mrs. Stamus, called the BornThisWay Foundation. Created with jack.org in partnership, the BeThere Project acts as a free online mental health resource to give you the knowledge and confidence you need to help a loved one going through a tough time. This course took me around two hours to complete, as there are five "rules" that act as the framework for the course. Before I go any further in my experience, I would like to note that although the website gives you a certificate for completing the course, this does NOT make you a therapist, or a qualified doctor. If you or a loved one is having severe mental health issues, please contact a qualified professional or 911 if need be. It's important to note that this course is supposed to be used to assist you in being an emotionally safer resource for friends, family members, and yourself! 

The course was very eye-opening in the sense that you got to listen to other people's struggles, but they always had someone who responded healthily to their situation, to assist them during their recovery. Best friends, parents, and sibling combinations were shown to demonstrate that mental health is important to all age groups, ethnicities, races, and religions. The diversity in the video easily allowed me to relate with different people who were similar to me, which I'm sure you'll get out of this program as well. Not only do the golden rules help you to help others, but they recognize there's a limit to what we can handle emotionally. It's important to "BeThere" but when it starts to interfere with your mental state, the golden rules are no longer helpful to your friend because they're harming you! 

BeThere teaches you how to set boundaries in a respectful way that ensures that you can still be supportive of someone who is struggling. With this program, I learned how to be a better friend and how to take care of myself in the process. It's essential that in these next few months we can BeThere for each other as a school as we finish off the year strong!