“Since last March, we’ve been in pandemic mode,” Suffern track coach Jeff Dempsey told
Runner’s World. “So our kids can race, we’re gonna find a way. In the fall, that was individual time trials on our cross-country course. When snow and the cold started, we needed to do something new.”
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Because of pandemic policies in the county, most indoor track locations were not an option for races. Suffern, along with a few other schools in the area were scheduled to compete in a meet at The Armory, the famous cathedral of indoor track running in New York, but that was canceled just days out because the facility transitioned into a vaccination site. Dempsey and his assistant coach wanted to give their runners a chance at competing before the outdoor season started, so they put their heads together.