Students who enjoy running and staying fit have a new, community-oriented option thanks to Zohabe Uzzaman ‘26 and Lucas Aalderink ‘26’s new Red Valley Track Club.
The club trains on weekends at Lincoln Athletic Building (LAB) located at Lincoln High School. The facility includes an 80-yard turf field, a 300-meter track, and an indoor fitness center. The club first started meeting in early December with five participants. Besides weekends at LAB, the club meets after school to get some practice in. Members of the Track and field team know that participation isn’t mandatory, but it still has participation because of the buy-in of current Greenhills men’s track team members.
“We go there, it’s unaffiliated with Greenhills and student-run. We’re like an athletic nationals team,” said Henry Beck ‘26. “ It’s just a group who happens to attend Greenhills and likes to train together, and then sometimes we race together on Saturdays at the Lincoln LAB, and we’ll do relays and stuff and we’ll hang out there all day, and race. It’s pretty fun.”
While the running club is not officially associated with Greenhills, students use it as a training opportunity for the upcoming track season.
“It’s called Red Valley Track. It’s the opposite of Greenhills, we just race a couple weekends and then it’s just to get prepped up for track,” said Beck.
The Red Valley Track Club allows for a winter opportunity to train for the upcoming spring track and field season.
“It’s a great feeling to train with my track and field friends that have the same goals as me,” Royal Seale ‘26 said. “We not only practice our sport, we improve our bond.”
Seale has also found that the club helps with maintaining motivation in the off-season.
“My teammates keep me accountable,” said Seale.
The Greenhills Men’s track team’s 2024 season moved to a new region introducing fresh competition. The team came in second place at last year’s Catholic High School League (CHSL) championship coming in second place. A relay made up of four people qualified for states during the 2024 season. The year before, the team won the CHSL championship.
“We wanted all the students at Greenhills to have a place to improve and get faster for the season,” said Uzzaman. “We also do it for the seniors, last year we lost a devastating CHSL championship and we as a team feel we owe it to the seniors to get them their CHSL championship.”
Uzzaman and Aalderink have put a lot of work into growing it with the first meeting only having a handful of participants. They worked with their contact at Lincoln Consolidated School District to secure somewhere for the club to train indoors during the off-season. They reached out to current Greenhills Track and Field teammates to see who would be interested in joining them on the weekends and after school.
“It was hard to recruit people to join the club,” Uzzaman said. “Me and my co-captain Lucas really wanted this team to form so it was down to when we were going to form this club, not if.”
Nico Aagesen ‘26 also started spending his Saturdays running with the Red Valley Track Club. He’s been on the cross-country team for the past three seasons, and has felt the bonding time in the offseason helps foster the team’s culture when spring rolls around.
“We’re building a culture for the track and field team,” said Aagesen. “It feels like we’re a family.”
The club has created ways for the team to train despite Michigan’s winters. The club continues to grow each weekend with new members from the Greenhills Track and Field team. Aagesen has been enjoying his time with the club. The group regularly gets anywhere from two to eight runners participating each time.
“This is going to be a super memorable experience as I look back on my time here,” said Aagesen. “I’m hoping to improve my times thanks to the work I’ve been putting in in the off-season with the Red Valley Track Club.”
