Amador’s Cross Country team ran successfully at EBALS earlier this month, qualifying them for the NCS Championships. A season’s worth of hard work and training culminates in the races taking place in —- on Nov. 22.
“So we’ve been training for a few months. It’s been almost half a year at this and we’ve been training consistently. We run 6 out of the 7 days of the week and have practice for 2 to 3 hours. So it’s been a long way coming. We’ve been training really hard. We have multiple workouts throughout the week, and it’s been really a month-long struggle,” said Varsity Runner Diego Laredo (‘26).
Cross Country does a variety of workouts and training to make sure they are ready and prepared for a spot in NCS. The variety of training includes a mix of simple and complex workouts every single day after school.
“We do train a lot, but it’s really fun, exploring when it comes down to it, or practice or something really different. So you won’t be doing the same thing every day. We have long runs, easy runs, and we do strain circuits, which are kind of fun, because we just like running back and forth on the fields. Our hard workouts are different every week, so you’ll get a different taste of tempo workouts, VO2 max, intervals, for far workouts, and they’re really, really interesting,” said Laredo.
Bumps in the road
As a result of the intense workouts, many of the runners get injured a lot. This was one of the lows during the season, making it hard for Amador to have enough runners for a specific race.
“We’ve had some injuries throughout the year, and especially on the boys’ side. Some people have missed some training, so we’re just trying to get some fitness back in these two weeks, but everybody’s there and running well,” said Cross Country Coach Jason Oswalt.
Injuries have impeded some runners’ progress throughout the season. From sickness to shin splints, health concerns prevented some members from running in races and participating in workouts. However, these members must put just as much effort into recovery as progress in preparation for NCS.
