Members of the Penn State track and field team give a whole new meaning to "year-round athletes."
Between cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field, the athletes compete in all three collegiate athletic seasons -- fall, winter and spring.
"The hard part is keeping the athletes at a high level of fitness and not getting tuckered out," Penn State track and field coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "Collegiate seasons are two-and-a-half months long for most sports, but our athletes will go for as long as eight months straight in competition."
The summer offers the athletes their only two months free from competition, but they are still under instruction from their coach. Training during the summer, however, is not nearly as intense as it is during the season, Alford-Sullivan said.
"It's a gradual progression through the summer months to get up to a high level of running again for cross country," senior Teddy Quinn said.
"And I always like that part of the year the most because I'm usually home and there's no real pressure of racing, so I get to go at my own pace and I'm not really doing anything too intense."
The summer months are vital mainly for "rest and recovery" because during the competitive season, athletes only have a week between meets to tend to their aches and pains, Alford-Sullivan said.
Although the runners can use the cross country season to prepare for the indoor and outdoor seasons, field athletes do not have that luxury, as cross country does not offer any field events.
The routine for field athletes, however, is not much different than that of the runners, Alford-Sullivan said. Each athlete on the team, including those competing in cross country, has a fall conditioning program to follow.
"When the outdoor season ends in the spring, they all get a pretty good break over the summer," Alford-Sullivan said, "so the throwers don't have to train intensely, but then their fall semester is a really hard and intense training cycle since they have that extra offseason."
Although it is hard to stay focused for such a long period of time, the way each season is scheduled helps, Quinn said.
Each of the three running seasons ends almost exactly as a school break is beginning. Cross country leads into the break before spring semester, indoor track ends right before spring break and the outdoor season takes the athletes into their summer break.
Another key to maintaining a competitive edge is the coaching, Quinn said. Like many of the other Big Ten schools, Penn State has the same head coach for cross country and both track seasons. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois are the only three schools in the conference with different coaches for cross country and track.
"It's really important to have Coach Alford-Sullivan do all three because it develops a really good coach-athlete relationship," Quinn said, "and she knows each athlete really well and what is good for them and what isn't good for them."
Although athletes compete individually, Quinn said it is important to remember track and field is an overall team sport.
"It can be really tough at times but a positive outlook is we do all this as a team," Quinn said.
"We have a team that lets you lean on them and gets you through those tough times in the year and that's huge."
