The past three and a
half months have been a test to the self-motivation of every athlete across not
only Illinois but also the globe. For cross country runners, once the track
season was canceled, their hope turned toward the 2020 cross country season.
A recent MileSplit IL poll confirms this sentiment. 75% of athletes who responded to the poll stated
their training has shifted wholly to cross country. Meanwhile, less than 15% of
respondents had the intention of continuing forward with track competitions
this summer. A question that has been in the back of my mind, and I'm sure many
other cross country fanatics, is what will the first-ever year of summer
training during a global pandemic look like? In this article, I'll explore some
of the implications as well as guidelines the IHSA has released.
Accountability is a
necessary tool to ensure each member of the team gets in their proper summer
mileage. In years past, accountability came in the form of summer running camp,
meeting up with teammates, or talking with coaches in-person, but this year, so
far, none of that has been commonplace. At Libertyville High School, my
teammates and coaches have been posting our daily runs in a Strava club. All of
us were new to Strava but quickly became fond of it. Strava, or any other
method of sharing runs, has been a great way to gain motivation by seeing the
runs teammates have been doing, and it exposes any holes in the training of
others that the coaches can catch onto. On top of that, weekly virtual team
meetings have been useful in creating the team-centric environment that makes
cross country so beloved.
One benefit the pandemic could provide summer training is the drastic increase in free time.
Now athletes likely have far fewer commitments and have more freedom to decide
what to do with their days. The hot weather likely pushes athletes to run early
in the morning, and now most runners are free to do that or run in the evening
when the weather cools off.
On June 6th, the IHSA
approved the opportunity for schools to host practices with a few catches, the
major one being that these practices cannot "include any skill of sport training elements." This means that
the practices could only focus on general fitness, not any skills that would
directly benefit an athlete in a specific sport. At Libertyville, the
administrators opted not to let any sports train off-campus, making it
difficult for the cross country team to benefit under these guidelines.
More recently, on June
15th, the IHSA released a new set of guidelines under stage two of the return
to play initiative. The new set of guidelines aligns "with Phase 4 of the
Restore Illinois plan" that will likely go into effect "in late June and early
July." Phase four of the Restore Illinois plan allows gatherings of up to 50
people at a time, which for many schools will be sufficient to hold practice
for the cross country teams. As of the writing of this article, the IHSA is
still pending approval from the Illinois Department of Public Health. At
Libertyville, the athletic directors have tentatively chosen to start these
camps in early July and run them for three days per week through the start of
the school year, but every school's plan will likely look different. When not
running, Libertyville has required athletes to maintain a six-foot distance
from each other. Stage two of IHSA's return to play plan certainly looks
promising for the resumption of fall sports.
At this point, summer
training is about halfway completed, and while it's uncertain whether or not the
cross country season will happen, the best plan of action is to keep
persevering and training consistently while staying safe.
IHSA articles quoted:
https://www.ihsa.org/News-Media/Announcements/ihsa-idph-announce-return-to-play-guidelines-for-ihsa-teams-that-may-begin-june-6
https://www.ihsa.org/News-Media/Announcements/ihsa-board-issues-joint-resolution-on-black-lives-matter-decides-four-state-final-venues
