Season Interrupted: Peninsula track star Aiden Lieb pays it forward

Throughout the spring, The Times will interview high school seniors whose athletic careers were cut short by the coronavirus outbreak.

Name: Aiden Lieb

School: Rolling Hills Estates Peninsula

Sport: Track, hurdles

Key stats: Won the Southern Section Division 2 110-meter high hurdles as a junior

Summer plans: Take July off after training in June.

Fall plans: Will attend UCLA.

On learning he couldn’t compete in the Arcadia Invitational:

“To have that pulled from me, it would have given me a chance to prove myself. I’m very distraught because of it.”

The difficulty of training without a team:

“It’s definitely challenging training by yourself. I’ve been training myself for a month-and-a-half. It takes a toll not having laughs at practice. It kind of deprives you of exciting parts of track and field. It’s a very social sport.”

What’s he’s focusing on in his training:

“I’m trying to improve my balance and get more nimble and flexible. I’m working on handstands and doing more yoga.”

What he misses the most:

“Competing. You train for nine months to go against some of the best in the country and then all the nine months is pulled away from you.”

On the lessons he’s learned:

“To stay more composed. Having your season canceled, it is real easy to get upset, blame somebody or some thing. I don’t feel that’s the right mind-set to have. Yes, it’s upsetting but having that ruin a sport for you is something I wanted to avoid.”

Where he sees himself in 10 years:

“I hope to stick with track. I’d love to be passing on my knowledge. A dream other than professional track is to help young athletes grow and aspire to be whatever they strive to be. I’ve had a lot of people tell me I can’t be a professional. I don’t have what it takes. It’s very hard to overcome everybody who doesn’t think you can do it. I want to be that support system that believes in young athletes.”

Video interviews of each athlete can be found at latimes.com/sports/highschool.