In the last two decades, the Petersburg High School Vikings track and field team has had roughly 20 individual state champions, a multitude of podium finishes and handfuls of third, fourth and top-ten team finishes at the state tournament…not to mention the Region V titles that moved most of these athletes and teams on to Anchorage.

Not extraordinary across the range of Southeast — until you consider they have no track to speak of. Over the weekend, athletes from that background were practicing at the Thunder Mountain Middle School track in Juneau, something the team has done for many years, since before the Juneau schools split and Adair Kennedy Field was the attraction.

“Well, these kids don’t have a track in Petersburg,” Vikings head coach Erin (Pfundt) Hofacre said. “We have this little dirt circle that they can go out in, and they have a lot of grit and they know how to put in a lot of effort, but when we show up to a meet against other schools that do have tracks they step on and it’s like, ‘Where’s the starting line for the 400? And how do we set up a block on an actual forever track?’ So for all of those things and more, we needed to come up and figure that stuff out so that we’re prepared for that first meet.”

Hofacre knows firsthand the trips to Juneau as a teen. She ran four years for Petersburg at the location of the current dirt “oval,” which is half the size it needs to be to make sense. She ran well enough to continue another four years of cross-country and track at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, (2018-21) as she earned a teaching degree. It came “full-circle” this weekend as she had the Vikings out on the TMMS track with former Vikings coach Tom Thompson, who was one of the first to organize a practice trip here years ago. Prior Vikings track guru Brad Taylor would arrange stopovers in Juneau when the team was on the road in one direction or the other.

“So getting to come back and do that, and it was Tommy’s idea to come up here in the first place because he did that when he was coaching, too,” Hofacre, said. “So having that encouragement of that’s something we can do, we can bring them up…even if it’s not for an official meet. Because we only get two meets before regionals and we’re expecting them to go out and compete. And we want them to compete and feel prepared and successful when they do that.”

This weekend, many of the Petersburg track team members were attending the Region V Music Festival so the rest of the team came along, not only to train but to support their musical teammates. This is how champions are made.

The current PHS dirt oval has been lengthened to 230 yards. The patches of muskeg in between and sometimes over still remains as the school essentially is built over muskeg in a rainforest.

There are special starting points for each of the distances.

The jumping “pit,” if you can call shoveled dirt that has a plywood cover one, is used. A concrete jump ramp is new, but it doesn’t have any track on it yet so athletes can’t run on it. They have a rudimentary throw cage and ring, but no shot pit or discus toe board.

There is room for two hurdles now, as opposed to one a few years back, but it is not safe for the hurdlers to practice three-stepping, which is what the goal is to get fast at the 100 hurdles. So most hurdling is done in the gymnasium.

“I think you get out there and you work hard enough and it’s going to make sense,” Hofacre said. “Also Brad Taylor was coach when I was there and he would take us up Big C relays and we would go to Ketchikan and do a track clinic and he would just put in all this extra time before we actually got to meets. Kind of like what we are trying to do right here, is just give them a little bit more experience so that when we do go do those things they are ready for it and also having a great crew of kids, kind of like the program I came up from. They all want to do really well and so they are willing to use their free weekend to come up to Juneau and do that.”

On Saturday, Vikings athletes were in their second workout of the day.

“We don’t have an actual track or any super good facilities or equipment really,” defending Region V hurdles runner-up and state-placer junior Noah Pawuk said. “We don’t get as much experience. The only time we run on a track is the warmup before a meet. Getting this experience, feeling what it feels like to run with spikes on a track is really important because you can’t really get that experience in Petersburg when we just have a 200-meter gravel path and you just run it in your regular tennis shoes. So getting the experience of what it actually feels like to be a regular track is huge so you don’t get as shocked by it when you are actually running an actual race. We have a lot of incoming freshmen on this team, some that have not even ran in track before, so getting this experience is really important, especially as a team.”

Freshmen Lexi Tow and Cadence Flint were enjoying bonding as they sprinted in team 200s.

“It feels way better than our one at home,” Tow said. “And it feels really nice to just get out here and run on it. It’s just very different than what we have and it has been fun to run it with our team. It’s pretty big compared to ours. Ours is…really short actually.”

Flint was part of Petersburg’s girls state cross-country championship team this season.

“It is a really good learning opportunity to be able to use a real jump pit,” Flint said. “And, like, hurdles and to be able to practice going around the curves and sprinting the straight-a-ways. It’s a really great experience.”

Defending Region V discus champion senior Erik Thynes was crafting his throws deep down the TMMS field.

“This means a lot,” Thynes said as he walked to his discus. “It gives us time to acclimate to it before regions. It’s just an actual track. So it’s pretty nice to throw discus that aren’t shredded up… We have a little tiny dirt track and just like a block of cement and you just throw out onto the gravel so…Right now, in the season, I am just trying to get used to throwing again and making the small critiques to everything, making sure the form is good and on par, just kind of getting used to everything again. Hopefully by regions and state that’s when you’re peaking. My goal is to break the school record, which is 134 feet and I think six inches. I was at 126 and 11 inches so I’m really hoping this year I can dial it in. All I need is another eight feet… I’ve been trying to put on a little muscle. I’m excited for this year. I’m really hoping I can get one more good throw out there.”

With that comment, Thynes spun and released his discus farther than last season’s region mark and past his third-place state place throw. If he were in Petersburg it might have taken out a window in the elementary school or bounced on the playground roof or set off a car alarm in the parking lot. It may have been lost in the woods.

Fully committed to the University of Montana at Missoula for track and in pursuit of an engineering degree, Thynes is working through a hip flexer issue and shin splints but can’t pass up the big field opportunity. That is the life of a four-year, small-town track and field athlete.

“Don’t be afraid to mess up,” Thynes said when asked what his advice would be to a first-time track athlete. “Because that is the only way to learn is by messing up. And don’t be afraid to seek advice from other coaches because most of the Southeast coaches are really nice, especially the ones in Juneau, and Ketchikan and ours. Yeah, just don’t be afraid. Get out there and have fun and just try to do your best.”

• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.