After a long quarantine, shut-down schools, and no school sports, Apex High School welcomed back its track team on April 12th. Prior to the official start date, Apex welcomed its new head coach, Addison Johnson! This will be his first year coaching at Apex but his 10th year overall. His main goals are to help improve the team as a whole, get everyone to try and find what their strengths are, and getting Apex to go as far as they can in states and regionals. 

Just a month or so before the official start of the season, most of the track team gathered and started pre-season workouts. During this, they got to know the coach a lot better, were introduced to the new way they’d be doing practices and warm ups, and grew a lot closer as a team. 

Coach Johnson did a little bit of everything during his personal track season, but he went on to specialize in pole vaulting and then graduated from East Carolina University. After he graduated, he stayed on the coaching staff to coach for five years!

Apex then started their official season with some tests. They gathered the team, new and returning runners. They also brought forth those who were interested in field events and had everyone try them out. There were things from running quick sprints, using blocks, throwing shot puts, or even trying to jump as far as they could for the long jump. Surprisingly enough, many runners have discovered some hidden talents they didn’t know they had. Many athletes didn’t realize how well they’d do at some of these events until they tried it. Many would agree with the “you’ll never know until you try it” saying.

Starting on Wednesday, April 28th, Apex High competed in their first track meet. The meet took place at home out at the track against Apex Friendship High school and Middle Creek High school. Most meets will start their field events around 3:00  and then begin running events promptly around three thirty. There are also twelve events aside from the different field events total. In order, those include: The 4 by 800 relay, which is running two laps around the track and passing off a baton to the next person. Total, there are four runners, hence the name 4 by 800. The next event is the 110 high hurdles. Depending on how many people run this event at each meet, sometimes they don’t have this event. But when they do, runners set up hurdles that athletes jump over for one hundred ten meters on the track. There’s usually three to four hurdles total that the athletes have to jump over. The third event is the 100-meter dash. After the hurdles are removed from the track, athletes tack off in a sprint for the straight away which equals 100 meters down the track. The fourth event, similar to the first event, is four runners and a relay except this event is only 200 meters, which is also half of the track. The fifth and sixth events are the mile and the 4 by 100 relay. Then comes the 400 meter dash, which is one lap around the track. Next are the 300 meter hurdles and  then the 800 (just two laps). Then as they run close to the end, there’s the tenth event being the 200 meter dash. Then the 3200 meter dash as the 11th event, which is eight laps!! And then the last event is  the 4 by 400 relay! 

Apex High’s track team had at least two athletes participating in each of these events and scored an abundance of points for the team! The Apex Women’s track team won with a total of 123 points against Friendship who finished with a total of 39 and Middle Creek with a total of 18. Then the boys team finished, coming in second place with a total of 77 points to Apex Friendship who had a total of 85 points. Finally Middle Creek came in third with a total of 20 points. 

Overall for the first meet, each athlete did such a great job! The next two meets are next week on Wednesday, May 5th and Friday, May 7th! Good luck, Cougars!!