By Ethan Harrigan – Sports Editor

Amir Elhelw is a senior at Jonathan Law and a captain of the cross country team. He has been a varsity runner for all three of his years with the team. Sports Editor Ethan Harrigan interviewed Elhelw about the team’s fall season.

Ethan Harrigan: How has the season been so far?

Amir Elhelw: The season has been going really well so far, we’ve had a lot of really competitive meets and I’ve gotten to meet a lot of new freshmen who have made a great addition to the team and we have faced plenty of competitive teams that have really helped us push ourselves. 

EH: How does it feel being a captain and what have you done for the team?

AE: Being captain gives me, along with the rest of my co-captains, a special opportunity and responsibility to be able to interact with the team and help make the guys on the team feel like family on and off the course. It’s great to be able to represent law on the field with the rest of my friends and teammates.

EH: How did the team prepare for the season?

AE: Because of covid, we started group summer practices in early July and did mostly distance runs to help build endurance, some sprint work, and we threw a few fun team workouts into the mix whenever we could.  

EH: How is this season different from last year?

AE: Because of COVID, we had to practice in cohorts rather than with the whole team until mid-end of September so I was really only running with about a quarter of the whole team for the first few weeks of practice, which really helped me get to really know some great guys on the team, especially because my group consisted of mostly freshmen. We have a lot shortened meet list this year which only means that we have less opportunities to improve in a race setting, but that just means we have to work that much harder for each meet that we do have.

EH: Do you have any goals for yourself and for the team?

AE: As a personal goal I really want to be able to run a sub 18 minute time this season which means a lot of hardwork in the amount of time we have left in the season. As a team goal, I really want us to be able to have a strong showing at the SCC divisional championship meet, which is really exciting because it has a lot of really competitive teams this year.