You might have noticed local schedules listing “indoor track” for the current Fall II season in the pages of the Gazette recently.
That’s not a misprint. While indoor track & field was jettisoned from the winter season to Fall II due to COVID-19 regulations, the sport is being run outdoors, while still following the event schedule of an indoor meet.
The difference between the two types of meets is exactly what you might expect: all meets are held outdoors, though distances for events are different while following the indoor slate. For example, the short sprints are 55 meters indoors, opposed to 100 meters outdoors. The number of field events is also different, as outdoor events like javelin, discus and pole vault are not being held.
Northampton High School, which boasts one of the strongest track programs in Western Mass., has 81 student-athletes in the current “indoor” program. The Blue Devils entered this week undefeated at 3-0.
The girls program at South Hadley High School went 2-0 this year, while the boys team split a pair of meets this season.
South Hadley girls track coach Nick Davis said that while there has been a change of scenery from a normal indoor season, that could actually work toward their advantage.
“If anything, it just prepares the student-athletes better for the upcoming outdoor season,” Davis said. “It has allowed our student-athletes to learn the different layouts of facilities and has highlighted how quickly an outdoor meet moves compared to an indoor meet.”
Northampton head coach Linda Rowbotham mentioned that the athletes who compete on the indoor track team are not necessarily the same athletes who compete in outdoor track. She said that some of the talented athletes on the girls team play lacrosse or ultimate in the spring, while some of the current members of the football team would normally be on the indoor track squad but couldn’t due to the Fall II slate of sport offerings.
“For those athletes who are spring outdoor track and field athletes, this Fall II season gave us a little jump on training,” Rowbotham said. “We started on March 1 and would not normally start spring until mid-March.”
Both Davis and Rowbotham said these adjustments brought on little to no significant challenges however. There were only a few small disadvantages for South Hadley, according to Davis.
“We did not have access to our weight room so the team spent a lot more time doing body weight work than we normally would have,” Davis said. “The cold days were tough on everyone, sometimes we needed to cut practice short and on days that it was cold and raining we had to cancel to keep everyone healthy.”
Despite that, Davis said the coaching staff and the team adapted very well considering the circumstances.
For Northampton, there all still opportunities for unattached state level competition. Some Blue Devils have competed unattached at the MSTCA State Invitational meets at West Bridgewater Middle-Senior High School.
Last week, junior Riley Cole placed second overall in the boys 2-mile with an outstanding time of 9 minutes, 41.60 seconds, and senior Tor Olsson came in 10th with a time of 10:34.11. Junior Quincy Biddle placed 6th overall in the girls 600 meters with a time of 1:46.58. All were personal records.
Coaches for both programs said the ability to compete at all is a blessing. While the weather can cut down on some scheduled meets, they said an abbreviated indoor season held outdoors is still a breath of fresh air in returning to some sort of normalcy.
“The student-athletes worked very hard to get back into the routine of the daily grind that our coaching staff put them through week in and week out,” Davis said last week. “I am very excited to have our outdoor season start in just over a week.”
Outdoor track season begins with practices on April 26.