The St. Joe’s men’s and women’s cross country teams are required to wear masks during practices on and off campus this fall to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Women’s cross country Head Coach Melody O’Reilly said there will be obvious adjustments the team will have to make.
“It’s definitely hard to breathe,” O’Reilly said. “We may need to slow the pace a little bit and give them more recovery, but we will get it done.”
O’Reilly is unsure if other teams in the Atlantic 10 (A-10) abide by the same mask regulations as St. Joe’s does. She said the jurisdiction of local and state governments determine when a college team is required to run with masks. In the state of Pennsylvania, mask wearing is mandated outside of the home.
“It is a [Pennsylvania] rule to mask up,” O’Reilly said. “It’s not just an athletics rule.”
While for most of these athletes the wearing of these masks in necessary, there are a few exceptions to the rules.
“If we’re running in groups and we’re not running with people in our immediate household, we’re expected to wear masks for the entire duration,” said senior cross country and track and field runner George Steinhoff.
Each week, the cross country teams’ practices consist of interval workouts, tempo runs and long runs. Steinhoff said masks are especially bothersome on tempo and long runs.
“We have one really long tempo run of about six to 10 miles and a long run which is about 13 to 17 miles,” Steinhoff said. “For those runs, it’s really difficult. But for the easier runs, it’s less of a nuisance.”
O’Reilly said that while discussions of requiring a mask during all athletic activities began as early as April in SJU Athletics, it only became a mandatory rule within the past few weeks.
“It wasn’t even a guarantee that they were going to have to wear them while training,” O’Reilly said. “It was only in the last month before we came back that we started talking about the possibility of the athletes wearing a mask while training.”
Steinhoff said masks specifically designed for athletic activity will be distributed to athletes shortly.
“The university will be providing us with two masks to wear for athletic use within the next week or so,” Steinhoff said. “[The athletic masks] will be more breathable than the standard surgical masks.”
The men’s and women’s cross country seasons were postponed by the A-10 on July 17. Indoor track and field, a sport in which many cross country athletes compete in, is scheduled to resume as planned in winter 2020.
