Senior Aurora Wiedoff first joined track and field her freshman year, joining mainly to meet and connect with people and grow her community, she explained.

Wiedoff participates mainly in sprinting — running the 100m, 200m, and the 4x100m. 

Throughout her four years on the team, she said her coaches and her love of running are what has kept her going.

“I just enjoy running,” she said. “It makes me happy afterwards; it gives me relief and joy knowing that I did good.”

Wiedoff embraces the competitiveness of running, declaring it her favorite part of the activity. 

Throughout her whole career, her biggest accomplishment was qualifying for state for two consecutive years — her sophomore year and junior year. 

“It went as well as it could’ve,” she said. “It’s just a big deal, so I felt accomplished to be there.”

During her sophomore year, she went to state for 4x100m, which she considers her most treasured memory from track.

“We got in with a wild card,” she said. “I texted all my teammates, and I was like, ‘Hey, we get to go to state. We’re leaving in two days.’”

Her most challenging moment in track was during her sophomore year, where she badly sprained her ankle playing soccer, meaning she had to wrap her ankle during every meet, sometimes not being able to run at all. She said she was able to overcome this by taking good care of her injury, keeping in mind that it will heal with time and trying not to injure it more.

Within her team of sprinters, she said the environment is positive, and that they all support each other at meets. In general as well, track and field has a constructive team mindset, with teammates cheering each other on.

“We all cheer each other on, no matter if we’re running or in field events,” she said.

The team also does warmups all together, which, according to Wiedoff, facilitates additional team bonding. 

“It’s just nice to bond with them before we go our separate ways,” she said. 

They have also done all-team dinners in the past, where they sit together to debrief and hype each other up before the next meet. 

Before each meet, Wiedoff said she takes time to pray for her own performance as well as for her team’s performance.

The meets themselves are quite long, typically starting at 4 p.m. and going until 8 p.m. She is able to find balance between her sport and schoolwork by completing much of it during her classes before meets.

“I try to balance it and make sure I have all my work done before I go to the meet,” she said.

Despite managing to do well academically, schoolwork and extracurriculars take up a lot of her time, so she struggles to maintain hobbies, she said.

As she approaches the end of her high school career, she said she is excited about graduating and is looking forward to a new chapter in her life, but is nervous about college.

For college, she is currently planning on attending Southern Oregon University, where she intends to continue her athletic career with track and field.