While the COVID-19 pandemic ended the season for all spring athletics, Fullerton College’s track and field athletes are still finding ways to get better while in quarantine.

Ian Rusk and Robert Moreno are among two of the student-athletes on the team who are not taking time off even though most gyms and similar facilities are closed.

Rusk is a sophomore distance runner for the Hornets from Rowland Heights and is planning on transferring to Cal State LA this fall. He is using quarantine to experiment with new training techniques, “The one good thing about all of this is I was able to do some different workouts I hadn’t done normally,” Rusk said.

One of these workouts is called a tempo run, which is timed intervals of long-distance running at a racing pace. Rusk said he has been running “65-70 miles a week” during the quarantine.

Moreno is a sophomore from Fullerton and participates in throwing events for the Hornets. He plans on transferring to Vanguard University in the fall.

He says he has been weight lifting three days a week and doing drills to help with his throws two days of the week. “I’m just drilling with either a medicine ball, a golf club, or a small piece of a metal pipe,” Moreno added.

Although he needs some room for throwing drills, Moreno has still been trying to practice social distancing. “When I drill it’s just outside on the sidewalk. I’m trying to minimize as much contact I have with others” he stated.

While both are working hard to stay in shape, they too are adjusting to remote class instruction.

Rusk is an English major and has been at Fullerton College for 5 semesters. “School isn’t really any more challenging in it of itself, (it is) just more difficult to focus when I’m at home with a lot of distractions,” said Rusk.

Moreno is a Math major and has been at Fullerton College for 4 semesters. He said not having physical access to the resources on campus has made things more difficult. However he still sees the bright side of things, “I feel like we have to be thankful in our own situations because we may have it easier than other people out there during these times.”

With the amount of uncertainty of next season both Rusk and Moreno are unsure if they will be able to actually participate in their first season at a four-year university, but both are doing what they can to stay prepared.