Track clinic trains kids in the off season
Winter, spring, and now summer: Some athletes just can't stop training.
The track clinic held at Old Rochester Regional High School drew athletes from nearby in Wareham, and from farther flung towns like Foxborough.
"It's our first year, we didn't know what to expect," said Cindy Tilden, who coaches track at ORR.
Tilden said that in its first year the clinic attracted seasoned veterans alongside inexperienced athletes to train with coaches that included student athletes from area colleges, and coaches from local high schools, including ORR and Wareham.
She pointed out Paige Santos - one of the leading high jumpers in the area - as an athlete who is here to polish her skills rather than learn the sport from the bottom up.
"Then, you have the ones who are just learning," said Tilden.
On the next to last day of the clinic, Paige Santos was there for practice, and said she hopes the work she put in over the summer will pay off in the winter and fall track seasons.
"I really worked on my approach for high jump this summer," Paige said, noting that timing is everything in the high jump.
Paige hopes to hit the 5'4" mark this year.
Paige's little sister, Brooke Santos, is an incoming freshman who came to the clinic to push herself in a sport she's watched her sister excel in for years.
"Paige has been doing track since I was in sixth grade," said Brooke. She added that while running track in junior high school guidance was never far away: "Paige helped me a lot."
Brooke will follow in her sister's footsteps, trying to master the high jump, and for her freshman year hopes to jump 4'10" - the qualifying height for states.
Another returning vet is Zoe Smith, and she says that the camp was a tool that's fine tuned her skills.
"It helped a lot with my technique," she said.
She's also a high jumper and hopes to make a big impression this year: "My goal is to improve my high jump and to qualify for states," she said.
Tilden said she thinks it will benefit the athletes to have a clinic so close to home even though "there's actually a lot of track camps they could go to."
Though it is nice to have a place to train in the off season that's just around the corner.