The increasing amounts have been troubling everyone. For track athletes in specific, practice has been constantly getting canceled; and if it isn’t cancelled runners have to practice on pavement which is awful for their shins and may hinder their performance.

Josh Augustine, 10, tells Bear Hub, “The snow definitely affected me personally as an athlete, because I am not able to workout as well in these rough icy conditions.” In the first week of practice 4-5 inches of snow accumulated and caused the start of winter track to be delayed by a week. I personally was not able to get out of the house and was running on my treadmill. As for the days I was able to get out of the house it was freezing cold and it was still hard to run. Many of the other athletes on the team share the same experience. Daniel Han, 10, tells BearHub, “The weather has affected me as a runner through many experiences that have been lost, like we haven’t been able to run on the track at all and I haven’t been able to reach my peak speed because of the tremendous amount of snow we are having.” All the athletes are affected very badly by the snow, from athletes tripping on the ice to not being able to complete the workout because the pavement has hurt their legs too much; this weather has been absolutely devastating. However, the team has been pushing through it. We have been doing foot drills and just sucking up the pain so we can all be at our best. But that doesn’t make it any easier to run in cold weather on icy pavement.

The coaches have been trying their hardest to make workouts as best as they can but they also have to deal with multiple issues,

Coach DiGioacchino tells Bear Hub all of the problems he has been dealing with when making workouts and accounting for the possible snowfall, “ The biggest issue caused by the weather has been not having the ability to have practice every day as well as not having the track. It’s tough not having the track; the pavements are not good for your shins or legs in general and between all that and the lack of practice it’s obviously been a struggle to have good workouts but we are adapting and trying to make the workouts as best as we can given our situation.” But you know what they say, “no pain, no gain” so despite how hard the weather hits the track team, they will continue to adapt and improve.

We continue to push ourselves despite the shrewd weather. Our workouts may not be as good as they were last year, and our shins may feel worse than ever before but we continue to forge ahead and work hard.