The track team size has dwindled substantially this year. Where most years there would be about 60 distance and 80 non-distance runners, those numbers are down to about 40 of each. The majority of those students are connected learners, which is very helpful for recovery according to Varsity head coach Brock Simmons.

“You have a lot more wiggle room for how you’re doing your work,” Simmons said. “You can be lying down all day, which really comes into play for recovery. ”

Because of COVID regulations, Junior Varsity (JV) and Varsity members cannot go to meets together. In the past, that would be a large part of JV kids’ experience.

“By the time you’re a varsity member in our program you have it all dialed in, you know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing and when and you’re taking ownership of what you’re doing,” Simmons said.

“Their race planning and execution has been mostly perfect, which is great for them but now the younger kids don’t get to see that which presents a challenge as a coach because I’m not able to show them that.”

There are positive impacts of COVID regulations as well.

“Racing less definitely helps, one of the biggest problems with high school runners is they race too much. One of the hidden benefits with COVID regulations is that there have been fewer meets so we can train harder, recover harder, going into the next meet,” Simmons said.

“There has been some greater progress for that reason, and more personal records being broken every meet. For me, the good has outweighed the bad. That’s not necessarily because of regulations but I think that’s because of the kids and the way they positively responded to their challenges.”

On Feb. 29, sophomore Wyatt Athey broke a 37-year-old school record for 3200 meters (2 miles) with a time of 9:28. This is currently the top time in Texas in 5A for this distance.

“I trained for that by listening to what my coach told me to do and running the workout he provided me. I was aiming for the school record, I was told to go out there and do it so I did,” Athey said. He also set a record over 5000 meters at the Texas Distance Festival, clocking 15:24.