Ready to run?

For most of Virginia Wesleyan’s sports teams, two-a-day practices are reserved for preseason, breaks or punishment and are not optional.

VWC’s track team might be the only exception to the two-a-day classification. Members have morning practice during regular school days. The morning run is not for punishment, it allows members to get an extra three miles.

The morning run took the same route as what is considered by many students “The Lake Run.”

“We go one direction on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” said first-year head coach Mat Littleton, “and the opposite on Tuesday and Thursday. Those that are injured can ride a bike. The bike’s odometer has measured the run to be 3.2 miles.”

“It’s a recovery run in between the afternoon practices,” said sophomore Mark Banks. “It helps me recover faster from the harder workouts.”

While most people are sleeping, there are a select few who elect to meet at 7:45 a.m.

“It helps start my day,” said junior Harley Swan. “It wakes me up because I go run, eat breakfast and then go to class.”

However, there are points when it is tough to get up. But that is where the team comes into play.

“I want to hit the alarm every morning,” said Littleton, who participated in morning runs while a member of North Central College’s cross country and track teams. “It’s no different being committed as an athlete than a coach. There’s just a little more responsibility.”

“I want to go back to bed a lot of mornings,” said Banks. “But the team’s there and I don’t want to let them down.”

“We give wake-up calls to fellow teammates to help them wake up,” said Swan. “You just get used to waking up early. It’s not really that big of a deal.”

With the runners meeting at 7:45 a.m., it is easy to feel sleepy and hit the snooze button one more time. However, the run is combined with certain “features” to give it a creative feel. Among those features are “Guess the Temperature,” “Movie Quote of the Day,” “Word of the Day,” and “Song Lyric of the Day.” With “Guess the Temperature,” whoever is the closest to the actual temperature wins a hat with a thermometer and the title or Mr. or Ms. Temperature. However, all guesses must be based on feel, and the runners cannot check the temperature before the run. “Word of the Day” is based upon the word of the day from PeeWee’s Playhouse. Whenever the word is used during the run, people scream—just like his Playhouse.

“Each regular runner has a feature,” said Littleton, “based upon an area of knowledge or expertise.”

In addition to these features, the team has also come up with several songs that are sung at certain points during the run.

“On long, long runs there’s nothing to think about,” said Banks, the creator behind most of the running remixes, “so I just think about songs and I add words to relate them to running.”

Among a couple of Banks’ remixes have been N’Sync’s “It’s Gonna Be Me” and Snoop Dogg’s “Drop it like it’s hot.” Banks and freshman Dan Castan have even started to create a remix based on Ludacris’ “Stand Up.”

The team also carries a tune to several other songs. For example, right by the DeFord Gatehouse, the team sings “Bad boys, bad boys. Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?” As they make their way around Smith Drive and approach Godwin Hall, the group sings the Alma Mater.

“By the first week, they had all eight lines down,” said Littleton.

Even to help a couple of teammates who reside in Gum Hall wake up, the team sang to them in the morning—and even woke up most of the residents on Gum.

Although it was mainly the track team that came, the 3.2-mile run was open to everyone who wanted to come. The team has had one person who is not part of the running program join with the runs.

“We’ve had people from outside teams say that they would join us,” said Littleton. “Some members of the staff have even said they’d come out sometime. The runs are open to anyone. We’re having fun and it’s a great way to start the day off right.”

With the track season completed, the morning runs have ended as well. The runs will resume on the first day of fall practice for the fall athletes.

“We’ll definitely continue next year,” said Banks. “But for the sake of Gum, we won’t sing to them.”