Heritage Elite — a track season preview

When the alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., I really had to ask myself what I was doing. I was looking a long day straight in the eye, beginning with wrangling my autism spectrum/ADHD teenager into his running gear and into the car.

The special occasion was the Heritage Winter Series #3 track meet in Littleton, about 2.5 hours’ drive away. Thanks to COVID-19, Harrison had not run a track race since his freshman season and he is now a junior. The Blur’s first race was the 3200-meter run starting somewhere around 9 a.m.

In response the the effects of COVID-19 on the high-school track season, a few club meets are taking place in Colorado. I wanted to check one out, and also thought this would be good preparation for when I start coaching our school’s entire distance team in May. There was of course the question of whether we should be doing this at all. Nevertheless we piled in the car and drove away.

We arrived at Heritage about 8:30 a.m. and found the school nestled in a residential neighborhood. It was strangely quiet for a track meet. Due to COVID considerations there were only athletes in the 3200M, 800M, and 1600M, several heats of each, boys and girls. Things seemed a lot lower-key and I liked it this way, but it was also a fast crowd of runners.

The restrictions in place allowed for one coach and one spectator per athlete, masks to the starting line, and of course the usual physical distancing. All spectators had to stay 25 feet back from the track. I was able to be on the infield as his coach, and Mary got to watch him from the sidelines.

Harrison of course has a pass to wear music headphones and the resulting tangle with the earpieces and his mask at the start of the 3200M caused him some problems. He was seen running with his mask clenched between his teeth in the first couple laps, and fidgeting with his headphones throughout the eight-lap race. He ran a personal best by about 40 seconds.

I had some time to think this through while the 800M races went on. I decided to grab a buff out of the car as well as a headband. I put the buff around his neck and then snugged down the headphones with the headband and pulled the buff up over his face. This way all he needed to do was pull the buff off his face when the race started. 

This worked out great. He ran another PR in the 1600M but only by four seconds. I think the 3200M and the excitement had taken some of the edge off. I couldn’t complain. It was his first track meet in two years, he was faster in both races and didn’t have a meltdown even when he got his mask and headphones tangled up.

Crazier yet, I got home and found they had actually recorded the times in his MileSplit profile page, so they count as official PRs. It was a great preview for the season and hopefully we’ll make it to a couple more of these meets in the next few weeks.