With sports being put on hold due to covid quarantine, student athletes now have to deal with maintaining their exercise and staying in shape while also following the stay-at-home order. For Senior cross country runner Arturo Garcia, this is something he’s been dealing with cleverly throughout quarantine. “I’ve been maintaining my shape by going on runs when I could and mostly using the treadmill to keep my space from other people.”

Arturo Garcia is a three time NCS varsity runner for the Cross Country team. He has been running since middle school and hoped to run in the league competitions that follow after the normal season is complete, but because of the Coronavirus spreading around, the league has decided to cancel all the league competitions for all sports around, not just for Cross Country.

“We had goals to be in the top five for our league and make it to state as a team. I’m really just bummed since we had a great season ahead of us which is now cancelled.” Garcia states. “I feel like [the virus] was terrible timing especially because this year was a really big year for us.

Along with the bad things that came with the virus, he points out how it affects his connections within the sport as well. “This affected my connections to the sport because one of the main reasons I did this sport was because all my close friends did it with me and now that we are separated it’s really hard to find motivation to do something. It’s inflicting pain on me from something that I used to find joy from.”

Because of the current restrictions put on sports due to Covid and the quarantine, student athletes now have to find new ways to maintain their exercise and stay in shape while also following the stay-at-home order. For Senior football player Sam Johnson, he feels that it is important to maintain shape while also being mentally prepared for anything to change.

Johnson has played football since middle school and is a leader for the Arroyo varsity team. He hopes that football will take him places such as college, so staying in the ride mode for football both mentally and physically is an important thing to him.

“We were looking forward to training together during the season because it’s important to know your teammates. We’d know each other's roles, the plays; team building is just an important part of football so we can work together as a team on the field rather than against one another.”

Along with the present well-being of his teammates, Johnson also feels football played an important role to his well-being before quarantine began. “It’s really important to me, it gave me accountability with memorizing my plays, it gave me friends, coaches. I was hoping that I could potentially get a scholarship from football but since the season is cancelled and I didn't get a lot of stats last year due to my injury, I’m starting to have my doubts.”

With sports playing a huge role for many student athletes in AHS, they have to find new ways to continue their athletic journey while also following the covid health restrictions. For Senior soccer player Alyssa Sullivan, she found ways to deal with the sports cancellation and keep her shape to continue training soccer all while maintaining a safe training environment.

Alyssa Sullivan has played soccer for most of her life. This includes both Soccer at school, and club soccer which she also trains with while the school's soccer is not in session. Soccer is an important part of her life so Sullivan manages to find ways to continue training while also staying safe.

“I have been training with my club team three times a week while wearing masks while we train. It is very difficult to not be able to play soccer without contact but at least we are having fun as well as staying in shape.”

Sullivan manages to look at the positives throughout this tough experience and see how there still exists some good in situations like these. “I think it’s something to get me out of the house because I love playing soccer so at least that wasn’t taken away completely.”