Running with a head start to this year’s season is the Abraham Lincoln High School track team. The runners, both long-distance and short, have already set goals they plan on achieving within the next few weeks.

“I want to keep my title for the two-mile champion,” senior captain Lucy Luong said. Luong has been running since her freshman year in high school, and placed first for the 2-mile race, and second in the mile race last year in the All-City Championships. She runs five miles on weekdays, which takes approximately an hour per day.

In addition to the runners, the coaches have high hopes for this spring.

“I really want the team to win the girls title. I’d also like to see the freshmen do well because they have great potential, and because the key is to have fun,” long-distance coach David Chen said.

The first track meet of the season, called the Mustang Relay, was hosted and took place at Lincoln High on March 17. This meet included every high school in San Francisco. The ALHS track team has prepared for that Saturday by lifting weights and running about five to seven miles per practice. On given days, they run to the beach, polo fields, Lake Merced, or up and down the Quintara Street stairs. The sprint runners frequently practice at School of the Art’s track field, because SOTA has a new track facility.

“We do wind sprints, when we run on the clock. They have to hit a certain spot on a given time, with a limited recovery time,” sprint coach Tim Jenkins said. Jenkins, or as the runners call “Coach Tim,” works with the runners specifically on short distances. The short distances vary from 500-600 meters, which is equivalent to about a lap and a half.

Some of the upcoming track meets include races against almost all of the public high schools in San Francisco, including International Studies Academy (ISA), Wallenburg High School, Galileo High School, Lowell High School, Phillip and Sala Burton Academy, Balboa High School, Thurgood Marshall High School, Mission High School, and Washington High School. In addition to track meets, some runners on the Lincoln High track team are planning on running the Bay to Breakers, a 7.46-mile race across the streets of San Francisco.

“My goal for joining the track team is to stay fit and to do the best I can in the Bay to Breakers. I did great last year, I [ran in] less than an hour,” senior runner Calvin Shiu said.