Cross Country training through the Pandemic

When COVID hit in March no one thought that it would last this long. CIF has stated that sports for this fall season needed to be pushed back until January, but that is not stopping the back to back champions and the first State champions in the city of Bakersfield from training and gearing up for the season for over 17 weeks. 

  Head coach Greg Dabbs, states that the runners are, “receiving weekly updates for training via google classroom. We have been training for over 17 weeks.”  With the runners still in training Dabbs hopes that he gets to see his runners have an upcoming season and participate in school sports. If this team is able to return in January Dabbs states,  “ Ridgeview Cross Country has a lot of returners on the Boys’ and Girls’ team  and I am excited to see all their hard work they have put in the last 17 plus weeks pay off. We have the same goals every year as a program. Work hard and get better everyday at practice and compete for league and valley championships at the end of each season,” in regards to how the season  will go. 

For the Girls’ team Mone Rocha has been training consistently during this quarantine and states, “ While being in quarantine, something I have tried to improve on is lowering my run times and I am also trying to improve my mental state to have more confidence in myself.” Rocha has been running everyday with only one rest day. She adds, “ Whenever the weather or air quality gets too bad instead of running I will do a workout to improve my strength training.” Rocha says that she is pushing herself everyday  and her goals for this season are to, “ run a 5k under 20:30, to win the SYL League championships race, and hopefully place in the Kern County race. 

Many athletes and coaches were ok with the season being pushed back and hope that they still get that chance to compete.  “ I feel that if pushing the season to January is safer and allows Ridgeview’s student athletes to compete then I am okay by the decision, ” said Dabbs. Rocha adds, “ With the season being pushed back, I was disappointed because I was really looking forward to it, But I was able to have more time to train and better myself.”

With January only a few months away the Cross Country team is ready to run and want to bring home another championship to Ridgeview. “ I do feel slightly nervous going into the season being back to back champs because everyone is going to have high expectations from us and I am hoping we can live up to that expectation,” said Rocha.