Colonels impressed at Southern Miss. Invite

The Nicholls State University women’s track and field team impressed at the Southern Miss. Invitational last Saturday. This race marked the Colonel’s third outdoor event of the 2018 track season. Many Nicholls runners performed well, with some setting new personal records and others using the meet to climb up the ranks of the Southland Conference leaderboard in their respective events.

RACE RECAP
The Colonels competed against seven other teams, including Southland Conference foe Southeastern Louisiana University. Maerys Joseph set a team best time for the 400-meter, with a time of 57.57, which moved her into the top-15 in Southland Conference standings. Callie Scull also made her way into the top-15, with a 2:20:95 time in the 800-meter.

That time is good for
14th in SLC standings. Many other Colonels set personal records, including Hannah Naquin and Courtney Troxclair in the 5000-meter, Emily Sauce, Taylor Douglas and Lucija Barac in the 1500-meter, Lakeisha Taylor in the 100-meter hurdles and Eleana Callejas in the 800-meter.

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE
For track athletes, speed is the name of the game. In order to keep pace with their competition, these athletes are required to push themselves daily in practice to stay in shape and improve athletically. Training regimen put together by coaches is vital for these athletes to improve times and speed.

“Every week is important,” said redshirt junior Taylor Douglas. “We have one or two hard days a week, and what [Coach Stefanie Slekis] does is she goes off our past times since everyone does different races. Some of us do the same, but we run different races… She’ll take past meet times and break it down into speed day. She’ll go off those times and try to increase by doing shorted distances based off that race and increasing the speed, so we go faster for a shorted period.”

For the Colonels, the training regimen put together by Slekis has helped them get faster and more prepared for meets.

“We do less distance than what that race was, but run it faster so when we get to that race, we know what it feels like from practice, but faster,” Douglas said. “It’s called a tempo workout, which is a lot of reps, but at a high speed, so I think that helps us get faster. Everyday that we work hard and push ourselves harder, we get faster. It’s about staying healthy, getting in the weight room and building endurance and speed.”