At the shot of the gun, the race begins. This is track. Track and field is one of the three sports available to students at St. Robert School and it is the sport that allows students to expend energy in Spring. 6th grader Annalise and 5th grader Nick both participate in this sport and have been learning and growing as athletes this season with their team. However, while Nick loves track and field, Annalise feels that it could be tweaked for the better.

Anna has some regrets regarding her participation in track and field, and she doesn’t like the length of the season, but she admits there are some positives to the program. Anna regrets doing track because “nobody [from 6th grade] wants to go.” Without friends at the practices, Anna is bored because she feels she has no one to talk to. Annalise said that if her friends attended the practices, she would not regret joining as much as she does currently. Also, Anna feels the season should be shorter with less practices because she has a lot of homework to do, and she has to do most of it before practice or she will be forced to  stay up the whole night doing homework. She also just doesn’t like having practices three times a week because she has less time to hang out with friends since she is the only 6th grader on the team. Finally, Annalise stated, “I like shot put and hurdles, not running.” Even though Anna regrets doing track and wishes the season was shorter, she still has things she likes about track and field. Anna doesn’t like the sprints as much as the hurdles and shot put, and though the hurdles include a bit of running, she likes them because last year she didn’t have the chance to try the hurdles.

While Annalise is not that excited about track and field, 5th grader Nick loves it. Nick loves “Just being able to run with my friends and having a good time.” Nick, unlike Anna, finds that may of his friends have joined the team, so he enjoys running and finds that  track is perfect for him. Nick says, “Track is so fun and I love doing it, but the only bad thing is that we have practices 3 times every week, so I’m very tired and it’s time consuming.” Similar to Anna, he wishes that there were less practices in one week, but on the other hand, he also wishes the season was longer and that they have more meets because their season is barely two months. He feels this is not enough time to really improve his skills – plus, he would just like more time to run around with his friends. Most people assume winning is the best part of any sport, but for Nick, “The best part of track is the feeling I get when I finish the run. Whether I get first or last, it always feels good to cross that finish line.” Nick does like to win, but winning is not all that matters to him. The feeling of finishing the run, accomplishing a personal goal is enough to send him home with a smile..

Above all, every sport has ups and downs, and some of those pros and cons for track and field were shown, from the perspectives of Annalise and Nick, saying that there are too many practices or too little meets. Even with people having their own pros and cons, sometimes they have the same pro and/or con. After hearing about the St. Robert track’s pros and cons, is it bad, good, or somewhere in between?