Luke Miller

Griffin Hadley, varsity swimmer and senior, takes a breath during a practice swim. According to Hadley, his winter workouts are often more rigorous than his school ones.

With winter break less than a month away, winter sports will continue practicing throughout the break. Several sports have games or meets throughout, such as basketball, wrestling, and swimming programs. According to swimming Head Coach Chris Plumb, his plan is to run workouts throughout the break, except on Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Sundays, as per IHSAA rules. They will normally run practice before and after school in a normal school week before break.

Varsity swimmer and senior Griffin Hadley said their winter workouts are often more rigorous than when the school is still in session. 

“Winter training is always super tough,” he said. “We’ll have doubles three to four times a week with several three-hour practices along the way. (Without school following) we can always get after it during morning practices because we can get a lot of rest after.” 

This provides more time for team building, which will make them come out stronger as a team. As they support one another through the tough workouts in the weight room or the continuous swimming in the pool they are united as one. 

But because of COVID-19, this year’s break and season presents their own challenges. “Team bonding will be tough,” Hadley said. “We usually have several dual meets over the winter break, but at the moment our season is changing by the day.” 

Plumb said this season will continue to pose a challenge. With the state adding different restrictions, the team needs to keep space between athletes. Restrictions with social distancing are common problems, these problems consist of having fewer people in the pool at one time and having practices more spread out during the day. The swim team is also quite big, so staggered practices might occur during break to ease capacity concerns. Therefore, athletes can meet all of the requirements put in front of them within the pool area. In another atmosphere such as the weight room, they are stuck with one partner at most, and coaches require sanitizing equipment after use to encourage athletes to stay away from others.

Peter Suder, varsity basketball player and junior, said, “It’s about the same as last year, regarding lifting, but adding all of the safety measures including masks and lifting with the same partner at all times is different.” 

The basketball team, like the swimming team, often will practice once or twice a day and longer than on a normal school day. 

According to Hadley, extra workouts during break can always be an important two weeks of improvement. With a focus on sports without school, he said, this can lead to vital gains as athletes can rest without having to worry about tests and homework. 

Hadley said, “The coaches’ standards are high and the team always rallies together to put in a solid training block.”