Indoor track to me is a colossal waste of time. Such time would be better allocated to other things, like schoolwork. At the end of the day grades matter the most.
Thank you OP. We are just a little dumber for reading your every post on this thread!
....I'm still waiting for someone to post a GOOD reason why the INDOOR track season exists. If nobody comes up with a good reason within the next 36 hours, we're getting rid of the damn thing.
The only plausible reason is money. It feeds into the running shoe industry. Think about it. People often get hurt running on these small 150 m tracks. Easy to hurt your legs. Then what? You're off for like 6 months. When you come back you'll need new shoes and BOOM. Then it repeats for nearly every runner, every year. Think about it. It's pretty lucrative actually.
I can explain WHY the pointless indoor track season exists.
1) US running was founded on the British traditions - track and XC 2) professional track was destroyed by olympics in early 20th century 3) amateur track became a school sport to survive 4) no school in summer, so fall and spring only options. Spring's more likely to be warm enough for outdoor track so they put XC in the fall. 5) they invented basketball for winter, mostly in little gyms 6) but rich private schools wanted more (being rich) so they built huge gyms with spendy 200m tracks
The vast majority of schools don't have an indoor track and have to travel to one of these rich schools to compete, so don't take any of that "it's cold out" from anyone. They could just as easily travel to somewhere warm.
IMO if you're gonna do a winter sport, basketball can't fail to keep you in shape. Makes you run, makes you jump, makes you throw - hey that's every part of track and field. Too bad it doesn't work out for short people.
states with cold weather need it to keep up with the warmer states. honestly, it has turned into a monster that probably takes away from ideal periodization, but the alternative in most cases is that kids without a team to run for, during the winter, will not be motivated and they will stop training.
the great thing about it is that you don't have to do it if you don't want to!
IMO if you're gonna do a winter sport, basketball can't fail to keep you in shape. Makes you run, makes you jump, makes you throw - hey that's every part of track and field. Too bad it doesn't work out for short people.
Yes you run in basketball, but it doesn't make you faster. The goal of track is to run faster. In fact, baskeball probably hurts your speed because of all the ankle and knee injuries, plus compression from changing direction all the time.