Practices changes minimal for coaches, runners

Before runners can get started at Columbia’s crosscountry practices, they have to meet with Coach Adam Bailey first.

Bailey, in accordance with guidelines put forth by the OHSAA, asks all of runners five questions:

Do you have a fever?

Do you a cough?

Do you have a sore throat? Do you have any shortness of breath?

Have you come in contact with anyone who has the coronavirus? For the first two weeks of Columbia’s practice, Bailey’s gotten nothing but “no” back in response.

He, like so many other coaches throughout the area, is hoping that’s the only response he gets all summer, and into the season.

When the OHSAA officially allowed teams to return to organized practice on May 26, Bailey got in touch with Columbia’s athletic administrators as to what would change for Columbia’s cross country practices.

After some deliberation, they reached a conclusion: not much.

“The biggest change is that we split the team up into two groups that run at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. because we’re only allowed to have a certain number of kids due to distancing,” Bailey said. “When runners get to practice they all have to be spread out as well and they can’t flip-flop between groups so I had to coordinate who was in what group before we started. It’s pretty much gone on as expected.”

In many ways, cross country is the perfect sport for today’s era of social distancing. While runners might get bunched up in the beginning, a majority of races and practices occur with runners spread out across a threemile course. At Columbia’s practices, runners run anywhere from two to eight miles through the Metropark path behind the high school.

“It’s a lot easier to just keep doing what we do normally,” said senior Logan Fess. “I know other sports have to follow special guidelines for lifting or practicing but here we can just carry on like we did last summer.”

Fess is one of the numerous Columbia cross country runners who had their track season taken away this spring because of the OHSAA’s cancelation of spring sports amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. That, coupled with the state’s stay-at-home order, means most runners are still working to back into shape.

“During track season, long days are normally eight miles for me and short days are four, but during quarantine I didn’t really feel it so I was running six and three,” junior Sam Sikorski said. “It’s a transition but it’s going to take a little bit of time to get used to things, but now that I’m getting back into it. I feel better and I think the team does as well.”

Sikorski isn’t the only Raider who’s dealing with ramifications stemming from the lost track season.

“Not having a track season was tough,” senior Scott Saksa said. “Not only did we lose a year of eligibility but our 4x800 team was going to be really good too.”

Throughout the two weeks of practice, Bailey estimates that he’s had around 15 runners for each daily session, with the afternoon numbers dipping on occasion due to runners being involved in other sports.

Some runners have also elected to run on their own or with recent Columbia graduates Matt Pettegrew and Lukas Swartz. Bailey doesn’t mind his runners doing their own thing, so long as they’re getting the miles in.

“Most of my kids ran most of the quarantine since we were really hopeful we were going to have a track season,” he said. “All of my kids who I expected to put in the miles were able to. We’re just working on getting base miles in because it’s too hard to get speed work in now and then maintain that throughout the season.”

Although the OHSAA hasn’t officially announced any changes to the crosscountry season, it’s safe to assume that at least one part will have to be tweaked: the start of the race.

While this isn’t as big of an issue at smaller dual meets, it’s a common occurrence for the start of an invitational to feature more than 50 runners crammed together in a small space.

While there are some quick fixes that come to mind such as starting the race in waves or making the starting boxes bigger each idea comes with its own set of problems and complications. Still, those changes are small potatoes compared to what other sports are having to deal with.

“The sport kind of lends itself to social distancing,” Bailey said. “Some kids still pair up, but they make sure to spread out and leave some space between them.”

As the Raiders’ morning practice finished up on June 17 and runners slowly trickled back from their runs, Bailey spent some time talking to the upperclassman who ran with him that morning. As they sat around catching their breath, Bailey and his runners each took turns talking about excited they were for the start of the season. After spending a spring on the sidelines, the the idea of running competitively is intoxicating for almost every member of Columbia’s team.

“This (track season) was supposed to be a big breakthrough year for me,” Fess said. “I won’t take another season for granted because now I’m only going to have three seasons of track when I was supposed to have four. I’m going to make this cross-country season count.”