At the beginning of J period, girls begin to stretch and get ready for their workouts. As they squat, lunge, and run laps, beads of sweat drip down their faces.  In order to prepare for their upcoming seasons, Marlborough athletes put all their effort into training during J period, the period of pre-season conditioning that precedes every sport’s regular season.

During each pre-season, both Junior Varsity and Varsity players come together to practice and train. While J Period is designed to suit each team, some students believe that preseason practices are too hard because not every athlete is at the same level initially.  By having a preseason workout that pushes the individual more, All School Athletics Representative Claire ’14 finds that she can get closer to achieving the goals set by coaches such as Varsity Tennis Head Coach and Varsity Basketball Head Coach Shaina Zaidi ’03.

“As far as the overall stamina conditioning aspect of it, it’s harder than during the season because during the season, you can’t have athletes getting so tired days before competitions, and you have to draw on the conditioning you’ve built up,” Zaidi said.

She added that even though the conditioning is hard, the players have to start somewhere. Zaidi knows that athletes have to build a foundation during the off season in order to prepare for the regular season.

“It’s just a different kind of training regimen, incorporating a lot more strength building, and incorporating a lot more endurance building, and then basics for the specific stuff,” Zaidi said.

Some Marlborough athletes enjoy J period. Claire, a long-time participant in Marlborough athletics, has been a part of the pre-seasons for both tennis and softball.

“I personally am a really big fan of conditioning and weight training. I wish I had more time in my ‘normal life’ and regular season to do weight training,” Claire said.

Claire continued to explain how, during J Period, teams bond because girls are able to cheer each other on and work together before their actual season starts.

Basketball player Nellie  ’17 explained that she really enjoys the pre-seasons.

“Since we are just getting back to school, we need to get back into shape, and it helps, I think, because while we do mostly just rebuilding strength and stamina that we already had, we also are learning a little bit,” Nellie said.