Prepared to Improvise

There are days (forgive me) when I envy schools with more resources to spend on track and field. It would be nice, I think, to have a track... or a field for that matter. Like many teams, we were inside yesterday. The rain that has been falling since Sunday night has affected low-lying Concord in rather dramatic ways, and the lower fields of the school have mostly disappeared under the murky swirling waters of the Sudbury river.

In fact, resources or not, outdoor track is the season for improvisation as weather forces all of us to adjust our careful plans.

If it wasn't rain it could be snow. How many years did we start outdoor track with shovels and spades for breaking and clearing the ice on the inside lane of the old Newton North track, probably contributing to its rapid disintegration.

We all want to get outside as soon as possible, but teams are crammed inside of gyms, dance studios, or broom closets coming up with creative ways to get some training in.

I'm not complaining. Yesterday was a really good day at practice. We were unexpectedly able to use half the gym, which allowed our entire team to do cone running and circuit drills for an hour before getting booted out and heading off to the wrestling room for some core work. And after that, a couple of kids hung around and we did throwing drills for 45 minutes. The highlight was when our athletic trainer came in to see what was going on, and in the very next drill a turbo jav slipped out of one thrower's hand and went flying in a beautiful arc across the room, narrowly missing a loudspeaker.

In other words, we were all doing our best to improvise, which is the way it should be. Bad weather can make for good teams.