It’s not quite flu season yet, although it seems the entire Aspen High School student body is coughing, sneezing, and staying home from school and especially practice. Clearly, the person who has brought this nasty plague upon us has let it go viral, leaving sports teams missing their athletes.

Obviously no one likes being sick, unless you really want a ticket out of school, but varsity cross-country runner Ryley Sutton is miserable being sick. Most runners want to be healthy and ready for all of their upcoming meets, as well as other athletes for their events.

“I just feel awful all the time. I want to run but it’s so hard for my lungs to handle right now. I’m praying that I get better before States, so I can preform to the best of my abilities,” Sutton said.

With the fall sports season coming up to its last weeks, the last thing these die hard athletes want to be doing is sitting on the bench watching their teammates play the big games. One of the varsity football boys, Tyler Tick has that feeling.

“It’s very difficult to practice while under the weather, but we had to make sure no one else on the team got sick when coming up to the homecoming game. Although it was hard, it was an extremely important week, so I stuck it out,” Tick said.

The main culprits of this plague? In my opinion, it’s stress from the beginning of school, sharing water bottles, and the recent cold front. Fortunately most of those things are easy to avoid. JV volleyball player Razzi Schlosser has been doing everything she can to get herself out of this.

“I’ve been trying to take it easy at practices and get tons of sleep, but it’s hard because I don’t want to get behind by missing so many days,” Schlosser said.

AHS cross country coach Chris Keleher’s main goal is to have healthy, happy students on his team. His number one method on staying healthy? No kissing! The common cold is something you can train through, although the danger of training through it is the sickness could become more deeply seeded into your body.

“Usually as the weather starts changing, you see more people with colds, but this year has been epidemic. It seems like everybody has a cold,” Keleher said. “Wash your hands! I think that’s the worst thing. Kids are passing books and water bottles back and forth and just the unhygienic nature of the school environment is probably causing everything.”

Sleep, plenty of liquids, and a balanced diet are all you need to keep yourself staying healthy, so be sure to take care of your body to avoid missing out on any or anymore fun.