State Track Meet

Friday: I was able to squeeze in a 56:26 minute run today. I had to get up at 4:45 a.m. just to get the run in. By 6:45, I left for the State track meet with the kids. This is it… I think I am more nervous for this weekend then the kids are! This is what we were training for… We are favored to be in the top 3 for the girls and top 4 for the boys. We had many non-qualifiers show up to the meet to show their support and to cheer their teammates on (in the rain and cold). As you can see 2 of my distance runners resting up before their mile races 🙂 

 What a way to start off the meet!!! Our female miler ran a 5 second PR (5:07) and placed 5th overall. She was ranked 9th and pulled the 5th spot and scored good points for us. Our male milers ran well! On PR’d by 4 sec (4:18) and placed 6th.  The other fell short of PRing but still ran well. It was great to start the meet off by scoring great points (especially points where we weren’t counting on them).  

 The rest of the day, we had many great successes and very few shortcomings. The athletes performed well today. We didn’t score as high as we needed to but we do have another day to gain back where we fell short. One of our athletes had a sister pass away a couple of days ago due to cancer… We were so heart broken for him and his family. The one way we could show him how much we cared was by wearing a t-shirt in memory of his sister.  

I did leave the meet for a couple of hours to go to my 2nd daughter’s 1st grade presentation. It was so cute!  

 Corom and I watched a movie and then I went to bed because I had to get up early again. 

Saturday: I met up at the school at 7:45 a.m. to hop on the bus to the meet. I was able to get a 1:14.13 run in, in-between the 2 mile races.  I went with other coaches and ended up on a trail. Loved it! 

 As far as the meet went… The 2 milers did amazing! Our guy ran a 3 second PR (9:21) and placed 6th (scoring points); and our top girl ran a 9 second PR (11:05) placing 5th (also scoring good points where she wasn’t even supposed to score). 🙂  The sprinters and field eventers had many great successes as well. Fun to watch all of them! 

Oh it was a day with so many mixed emotions: joy, frustrations, anxiousness, nervousness, happiness, sadness and lastly being way bummed!!! We were at the end of the meet with the last race- the 4 x 400. We (the female) were ranked 3rd in State but if we were able to pull off a win on the 4 x 400 we would have a huge chance of winning State (if the 1st place team took 3rd or below)… The 1st 3 laps we were in the lead… The other 2 schools were near us also on edge. Come the 4th lap, the team that was ranked 1st pulled ahead (their runner is one of the top in the State in the 400). We knew that if our 4th runners were close we would be in trouble… Well they were too close. 🙂 The guys also ran well… At one point the baton was accidentally knocked out of one of our runner’s hand. It was recovered nicely. We ended up taking 3rd in State for both the male and females. It really is great to end off our season that way but I can not explain the emotions we felt as coaches.  (One of the pictures below show the scores of us going into that last race… We were all a couple of points off from each other!!!)

 I was able to put a smile on my face as the athletes came back to our tent from their cheering spots/race. But I was so bummed and I know the other coaches felt the same way. These kids have worked so hard all season and they fought hard these last 2 days… They competed well and we are proud of them! Just a good group of kids! It was good to come home and hang out with the kids and Corom. They had a fun day of playing and getting dirty. It’s mine and Corom’s 12 year anniversary tomorrow and our oldest daughter’s birthday… I had to get a few things ready for that and then we were able to relax.