After a cross-country season that consumed Margo Malone’s life from June to November, she and her Syracuse teammates, both men and women, are taking a team-mandated two-week hiatus from running.

Though the SU junior isn’t physically focusing on running, she continues to think about it. A fall in the NCAA national cross-country championship led to a finish with which Malone isn’t satisfied. The itch to run is still there.

“It’s hard not to run, but I understand it’s important,” Malone said.

 

This first respite from running for SU in a half-year serves to let the body rest and heal, allowing the body to relax and have crucial time to de-stress. For now, they’re regular students. After next week, though, the SU runners will be back at it preparing for the winter track season, facing challenges from the weather, running alongside traffic and adjusting from outdoor to indoor season.

It’s a little strange to Martin Hehir, the top runner for the SU men’s team, to just be a regular student for this fortnight — the team jokes about it — but it comes at a good time. Studying for finals is easier without scheduling a three-hour block for practice every day.

“This two-week break is crucial,” Hehir said. “It gives your body a break to rebuild because if you run, you’ll just break yourself down. It’s not just about your body, though. It’s as much a mental break as it is physical.”

SU head coach Chris Fox said that the team will stay low-key in the winter and then “go really big” in the spring outdoors.

Training begins for all the Syracuse runners as soon as they head home for winter break, because every athlete in the SU running system participates in track.

The training while away from campus serves to, as Malone said, “build a base” and set goals for the upcoming season. When they return for the spring semester they get back into track workouts, which they do once or twice per week in Manley Field House.

When the SU runners return from winter break, they’ll be outside running every day either to warm up for the workout or to keep their miles up. The low temperatures force the runners to adjust in clothing. Gone are the short-shorts of summertime, which are replaced with long-sleeved layers.

Malone wears running tights, socks, a base layer long-sleeve T-shirt, a Nike jacket shell, gloves and a headband. Malone’s teammate, junior Maura Linde, even uses a facemask. But the best and most indispensable piece of clothing is long socks, which cover the ankles. If the ankles remain exposed, road salt dries them out, leaving an ugly patch of skin.

Most of the SU runner’s training is done on the road’s shoulder, running against traffic. Drumlins Country Club and the surrounding rock quarry, a common SU training spot in the fall, are usually covered by snow at this time of the year. That compels the runners to find alternative routes to run. Sometimes they train on campus, but they spend a lot of time in the neighborhoods of DeWitt and Fayetteville.

Running next to cars whizzing past doesn’t worry Malone. She’s only seen a runner slip and fall from icy roads once in the three years she’s been here.

The runners have run tens of thousands of miles on the road, Hehir said, and running alongside traffic is no problem.

Fox said that it’s never been an issue before and he doesn’t expect it to be one.

“They plow the roads, they plow the sidewalks,” he said. “You guys can walk to school without getting hit by a car.

“This is just winter training.”

Published on December 3, 2014 at 12:02 am

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR