The Robinson track team sent five athletes to participate in the state competition last week. Each athlete that participated did very well and everyone placed in the top 20. The athletes that participated were Destiny Thomas (’19), Chelsey Campbell (’19), Ethan Geiger (’20), N’Dea Fitzgerald (’21), Jalyssa Richardson (’19), Avriel James (’20), and Richard Bennett (’20). Runner Ethan Geiger and long-jumper Chelsey Campbell both placed in the top five.

Ethan Geiger won the state championship for the 3200 race. He ran this in 9 minutes and 16 seconds.

“It felt crazy [to win] because my event got delayed 28 hours because of weather delays and FHSA pushed my event back to be the last one so it was mentally challenging,” Geiger said.

Excellence in sports requires so much more than a time. It requires mental preparation and relentless training.

“I just try to get myself mentally in the zone. I know what I did this season and I knew there was something to be done and I put my head into it and just left it out on the track,” Geiger said.

Practices increased and the training schedules were aimed to elevate the athletes’ abilities to achieve any coaches and athletes dream.

“The training has gotten a lot harder and has definitely been much more focused on aiming for a state title because the reps he had me do have gotten a lot faster. My coach is having me do a lot of pace work and a lot of mileage. He has been having me work on the pace I need to be ready to race,” Geiger said.

Chelsey Campbell won 5th place for the long jump event and placed 17th with her 4 by 100 meter relay. Like Geiger, she worked hard every practice and increased her training to perform her best at states.

“Our 4 by 100 team practiced everyday non-stop on our hand-offs by doing drills and run throughs, coming out of the blocks, and always running with someone in front of us to make us run faster. For long jump I had to do cycling drills and drills to help with my height so I could jump farther,” Campbell said.

Geiger intends to use this title as a stepping stone onto greater goals and accomplishments.

“I am still pretty new to this it’s crazy to think that I won a state championship. I’m just hoping that it will help motivate me in the future to keep working harder. I know that I’m capable of doing things that seem to be unreachable and now that I know I can do stuff like this I can go for even crazier goal,” Geiger said.