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Fall sports, especially cross country, hold long, repetitive seasons, spanning from blood-boiling August to glacial November. Comfort progresses parabolically, leaving the sweatless days of late September as the gold of the season.

The extreme temperatures faced near the beginning and end of seasons pose the greatest weather hurdle for athletes to overcome.

According to senior Hal Triedman, the lengthy season sees temperatures ranging anywhere from 6 degrees to 95 degrees, which can be extremely difficult to deal with. To Triedman and many others, running during the heat of the late summer can be a sizeable challenge.

“It’s definitely harder to run during the summer. It’s much more comfortable to stretch and run when it’s not stupid hot out,” Triedman said.

Sophomore Mary Corcoran, who is on the girls’ cross country team, agrees that the boiling heat and humidity of August are especially hard to deal with and actually affect your performance while running.

“In one of our first meets this year it was around 95 degrees and everyone ran a bit slower because it was so hot,” Corcoran said. “Humidity makes everyone a little more tired. I prefer less humid weather.”

Sophomore Nadia Vitek said she believes summer is not at all the ideal time to run, but that the freezing temperatures of mid-November are a much greater problem while running.

“When it’s that cold, your muscles get tighter, and it’s harder to stretch, and it’s easier to get injured. There’s snow on the ground, it’s easier to slip and you feel there’s no traction on your shoes,” Vitek said. “You feel like you have to run twice as fast.”

Vitek said that once it gets really cold, the track teams begin to run inside more, but near the colder end of the outdoor season she feels much less optimistic and worn out due to the freezing temperatures.

“You get a lot less motivated because it is really cold and you don’t want to do as much,” said Vitek.

Corcoran said that the freezing temperatures can affect your mentality and motivation.

“Sometimes it gets us down, but overall we power through,” Corcoran said.

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