After a difficult year of navigating through the hurdles of the pandemic, Burlingame track and field is off to a fresh start. The team is training for their opening meet, set to take place on March 9 at Burlingame. 

Rather than the more restricted dual meets held last season, the upcoming competition will be a quad meet between Burlingame, Oceana, South San Francisco High School and Jefferson High School, with one-versus-one scoring still in place.

“There’ll be a lot more competition at each of the meets, which is exciting,” head coach Chris Coleman said.

For the new season, Coleman is eager to see students advance through competition and, most importantly, personally improve as athletes.

“Those are really all my goals,” Coleman said. “The postseason is a nice addition — but the main goal is to have people learn, excel, and really do better than they did when they started the season.”

With a good fraction of the roster consisting of new runners — around 35% to 40%, according to Coleman — there will be many opportunities for people to discover and develop their skills. Freshman Audrey Colvin, an experienced runner and first-time member of the high school team, was motivated to join the team to participate in the long jump event.

“[I’m looking forward to] spending time with my friends and enjoying competing in a sport I like to do,” Colvin said.

Junior Romer Rosales-Hasek, who has been on the track and field team since his freshman year, recalls the compromised meet format of the previous season.

“Instead of meets with a lot of schools, we met at dual meets, which got rid of some of the track experience that we would normally have,” Rosales-Hasek said. “Also, one of the meets was a virtual meet, which sounds weird.”

The virtual meet involved Burlingame racing against each other and recording their times — an opposing school would do the same, and the teams would compare scores at the end.

“That also took away from the racing experience,” Rosales-Hasek said.

Coleman is hopeful that the upcoming season will allow athletes to compete normally again.

“We’re just excited about the opportunity to have a full season which we haven’t had in two years,” Coleman said. “So that’s a big plus, but also with all of the new athletes, to see who’s gonna break out, who’s gonna learn some things, and who can excel.”