Many shouts of excitement were heard on the running track at Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy as runners came barreling down the orange lanes on Dec. 18. This marked the first inter-squad meet of the indoor track season, where the track team practiced to improve their skills in hopes of beating their personal records.
An inter-squad meet serves the purpose of recording data, as no other schools are competing. During these meets, the team’s coaches want to get an understanding of where the team stands in speed and performance. Freshman Asher Kotok said that the main difference between an inter-squad meet and a practice is the level of competitiveness.
“The pros are just, you can learn how to get better from people who are who you’re racing against,” Kotok said. “Cons, if you don’t do good in an event, it might bring your morale down.”
However, this is not an unpopular take on these types of meets, as other runners agreed and added that the environment is more supportive because no other schools are present.
The season began after Thanksgiving, making this the first time trial of the season. Head Coach Shayna Held said that going into this meet, expectations were not very high but will rise as the season progresses.
“It’s been just three weeks, so they’re going into these really early season meets,” Held said. “These are pretty much just benchmark edit opportunities. So are we in a strong position? I think we’re shaping up to be. Are we in a strong position currently? Probably not, and that’s not expected from them.”
Held said that she was going to be tough on the 30-plus team members in order to build strength and raise their performance before the spring season begins.
Despite Held’s concerns, a number of runners did break their personal records. Winter track captain and senior Jonah Berman broke his mile time record achieving a 4:52 minute mile over his previous record of 4:56. Right behind him on the track was sophomore Isaiah Segal-Geeter clocking in at a 4:53 minute mile, down 4 seconds from his next best time. He also broke his personal 400-meter dash record, finishing at 1 minute and 1 second. Additionally, sophomore Ryan Klepper achieved a personal record, finishing his 100-meter dash at 13.65 seconds, down 1.27 seconds from his previous record.
“I was really aiming for something a little slower,” Berman said, “But the fact that I managed to be able to do that felt, in the moment, quite surprising and pleasant.”
According to Held, the main purpose of the indoor track season is to get better for the spring track season. Winter track is not mandatory for spring track, but many runners do both.
“Track seems to be a more long-term fall process,” Held said. “When we go into it, we’re not necessarily going into a winter season thinking that we’re gonna actually compete, we’re not expected to.”
Held added that she hopes the team will grow. She is looking for runners and throwers of all experience levels for the winter and spring seasons.
“We want to do better than [before], build and grow and get better.” Held said, “Because we can go against really, really tough schools we want to be right up there with [them].”
