Although the Cathedral Catholic High School Track and Field season does not officially start until February 29th, the track athletes have already started to prepare for the upcoming events. On the long distance side of track, the team has been training almost non-stop since their incredible win at the 2023 Cross Country State Meet. As for the sprinters, they’ve already been training since the middle of January and practice 2-3 times a week. 

Distance runner Hannah Sperling ‘26, shared that she’s preparing for this upcoming track season by “doing all the offseason workouts at school and even coordinating with my friends to run for days on our own. Staying strong mentally at the beginning of the season is helping me to be more confident going into the season.” The distance team has been running six days a week since the beginning of December and just started to add workouts into their training at the end of month. 

The distance athletes are running between 28 and 36 miles per week and will continue to add more mileage as the season progresses. The team meets 4 days a week for a hill workout, tempo run, long run, and aerobic conditioning run. On top of that, the athletes are required to run an easy three to four mile run on the days when the team does not meet for practice. 

The athletes have many individual goals for this season, however, senior captain, Ollie O’Reilly ‘24, explained “I don’t like setting goals for times because I feel that it limits you.”A huge part of running is being able to mentally stay strong and positive—even when you have a bad race or feel discouraged. It is also very important to not overtrain before the season starts. The team’s training is geared toward peaking at the end of the season and this is why the distance athletes are running such low mileage. 

On the sprinting side of the track team, senior Riley Leyva ‘24, explained that his training schedule consists of “three days a week lifting and three days a week sprinting. This is good for this time of the season because I don’t want to burn out too early by training too much.” Since the middle of January, the sprinters have started training as a team and began hurdling as well as sprint drills. 

Vincent Atilano ‘24, shared his goals for this season: “Win CIF in the 300mH and win state in the 300mH.” Vincent is one of the top track athletes and has been competing in winter track meets since November. The team is already looking super strong and this season should be the best one yet!