22 Year Old Record Broken

On March 22, the Roanoke Maroons Distance Medley Relay team broke a 22 year old record at the Roanoke Track and Field Invitational with a time of 13:15.96. 

Congratulations WRA T&F Alum and former Iron Lady, Margot Warner '13! 

Preseason Pool Workout

Local members of the team getting in a pool workout - Longstreth Relay's is not far off!

PreSeason includes a clinic for shot and discus

Last Saturday, sophomore Madison Clark-Bruno (extreme left in photo) accompanied Coach Khalila and Geno to a clinic for throws (shot and discus) held at Licking Valley High School, some two hours away.  The clinic, which lasted from 9:00 am until 4:30 pm, was attended by some 40 throwers and 8 coaches from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New York focused on the glide shot put and the rotational discus. Though long and a lot of work, "it was a lot of fun," commented Madison on the ride back to Hudson.

Pre-Season meet at KSU

Nina, Tricia, Sophie, Wade-Watta, and Geno at the KSU indoor meet

Indoor High School meet hosted by KSU

This past Sunday, four members of the WRA Girls' Track & Field team did something that no other girls' track group had done before: they competed in the Indoor High School meet hosted by Kent State University. Hoping to test the training they have endured with Geno since just before the holiday Break in December and simply to get some competition under their belts before our competitive season begins, these girls -- co-captain Tricia Cunningham in the 200m, Wade-Watta Kamara in the 400m, Nina Tekelenburg in the mile (a completely new distance for her), and Sophie Arzberger in the high jump -- joined for a 7:45 team breakfast before their 8:15 departure to brave the elements en route to the KSU Field House. It was the last of three such meets and it turned out to be the final opportunity for most of the high schoolers competing there to notch a performance that might qualify them for the State Indoor Championships, which occur next weekend. As a result, there were literally hundreds of entries in numerous events -- 60m dash; 60m hurdles; 200m; 400m. Just counting the girls' events, there were 18 heats of the 60m dash; 20 heats of the hurdles, 21 of the 200m and 14 of the 400m. This made for an incredibly long wait for each of their events. Thankfully, each girl was entered in an event that did not require prelims or semi-finals; otherwise, this story would actually encompass an even longer day. In fact, this meet in previous years was a two-day affair; however, since KSU had to host the MAC indoor championship meet on this same weekend this year, the high school meet was condensed to a single very long day. What is more, with so many heats – that were not known until just before the event, it was quite difficult to execute a proper warm-up strategy with regard to the progression of the finals in each event.

Despite it all, it was a tremendous experience for the Lady Pioneers, and for all except Wade-Watta, it was their first indoor meet ever; for all, it would be the first time running on such an odd-sized track -- 292 meters instead of the usual 200m ovals that predominate the indoor facilities around the country. Incidentally, there are even several 300 meter indoor tracks; however, 292 meters is an odd configuration, indeed. And while that made it all the more interesting, it also rendered a coach's task of getting interval split times that were anywhere near accurate nearly impossible. Let that fact serve as a quasi-disclaimer for the "guesstimated" splits for Nina's mile.

Sophie actually got it all started for us with her performance in the high jump, which began over an hour later than the program had originally indicated. Entering at 4' 7" (instead of 4' 3", where the competition began), she cleared the first two heights (4' 7" and 4' 9") cleanly on her first attempts. As the bar moved up to 4' 11", she needed all three jumps to make the clearance. And though she had three close attempts at 5' 1", she had to bow out at that height, finishing in 10^th place among 25 jumpers (actually in a 6-way tie for 5^th). Interestingly enough, Sophie had a goal to clear 5' today, and given the nice clearances she had at the previous heights and the closeness of her attempts at 5' 1", it is almost safe to assume that she might have made 5', had the bar been placed there after 4' 11". Nonetheless, her jump of 4'11" is the highest jump we have had among the girls in well over 7 years, and signs are that she will jump even higher once our outdoor season is underway.

Next was Nina in the third of 5 heats in the mile.  Let’s bear in mind that this is Nina’s first foray into track itself, and although she has worked with the mile before in cross country (the mile is not an event in the track season for us), she, too, had never dealt with a 292 meter oval. At any rate, she handled the novelty (all aspects of it) of the race quite well. In fact, her time of 6:07.2 at a distance that is a bit longer than the 1600m was three seconds faster than the time trial she had posted in the 1600 a week ago. This was a revealing performance for her, to say the least, especially as it points toward even faster times this spring.

Wade-Watta, after multiple warm-ups and sessions of stretching, finally lined up for her heat of the 400. I actually do not recall which heat or how many heats there were in total; there were over 100 participants in all with a max of 6 per heat. Starting in a weird spot on the track (to account for the 292m oval), she powered away to a strong 1^st 200m and held on to post a finishing time of 62.3, which was 1.5 seconds faster than her time trial last week. This, too, is promising, for once we return to the standard 400m track where she will be able to execute the different phases of the run, Wade-Watta will be looking at this time through her rear-view mirror.

Lastly, our co-captain Tricia, who had the longest time to wait for the shortest race, took to the track at well after 5pm in heat 10 of 21 in the 200 meter dash. Suffering through the same warm-up frustrations as Wade-Watta, Tricia was actually ecstatic to run and have at it.  In fact, I would venture a wager that her relief at finally being at the start line far exceeded the nervousness that accompanies most sprinters, especially when they have had to watch and hear the blistering times of so many others in the previous nine heats. Fortunately, the 200m is a race that involves very simple strategy:  run fast; then keep on running fast until you have to stop. Being out in the last lane, however, is a bit daunting for even the elite runners in our sport.  You are the target for everyone else, while you, on the other hand, have no one to use as a gauge of where you are in the race. That aside, Tricia pushed herself around what was an inordinately long turn to finish in 30.1, slightly faster than her opening 200 in our season opener (Longstreth) last year.  Once again, her performance affords an optimistic lens through which to prepare for the competitive outdoor season this year.

In sum, I could not be prouder of these ladies – surely for the great sacrifice of time and the eagerness to enter this meet, but most importantly for their overall sacrifice of time this winter to put in the sweat and work in hopes of entering our season with a sharper edge. Their results at this meet give ample validation to their hard work, and I hope that it fills them with as much excitement and optimism for our season that it does me.  They, in particular, and we, as a team, are all the better for their efforts; and for that, they deserve a very hearty Thank-you from all of us.