All the Tracking

Lucky me, I'm behind on the blog. (This isn't news to anyone) But that means I can put all the track posts into one large post. It is saving me time, but not shame. (You can't have your cake...and all that)

Ivory is a great little tracker. It was so fun to watch her this year. And by fun, I mean it was nice to see, but not nice to SIT there. The weather was particularly unkind for track this year. There were only four meets before Alpine Days and three out of the four were not people-friendly. But the kids were always upbeat and such troopers.

TRACK MEET 1

Ivory is a long distance runner. So her jam is the mile and even the two mile. Only 9th graders get to run the two mile and Ivory was in the right grade for that this year. However, there is a weirdness with 9th grade. It is two worlds. Nine graders are at the Junior High, but they are 'technically' in high school, so sometimes the 9th graders will run with the High School instead. That often means that teams will come and compete at the Junior high meets with NO 9th graders. So our kids will run alone, or they will cut events like the 2 mile because it is weird to only have one team run. 

For this first meet Ivory was running the mile and the 800. She was also in the 4x100 relay. She is NOT a sprinter, but they didn't have a lot of choices. There weren't enough 9th grade girls, so they used her. And honestly, she was a better sprinter than some other girls. 

This day was super cold. I always felt bad for the kids in their shorts and track jerseys. I always had a blanket and sometimes two. I often brought someone with me so I could time and take pictures. Here is Ivory running her events and her times for the mile and 800.

This is Ashley on the right. She was the first leg of the relay race. I didn't get great pictures probably because I was so cold by then, my fingers stopped working.

The other team didn't have 9th graders, so they did the two mile at practice the next day and counted those times.

TRACK MEET 2

This meet was just as cold. It seemed like it was maybe going to be a little bit nicer and then it snowed at the end. Bait and switch. Thanks for that.

Ivory has a lot of friends she hangs out with. There's quite a posse here on the bleachers.

Ivory was scheduled to run the mile, two mile, 4x100 relay and the 100 meter dash. What? More sprinting? Do they know Ivory? It seemed weird to me, but Ives was willing to run whatever they asked her.

Ivory came in last in many sprints, but here you can see that she wasn't always last. Good job chica.

She shaved a few more seconds off her mile time, which was nice. 

And there is some great debate about this two mile time. I have this screen shot on my phone, so I'm assuming this was from Ivory's 2 mile time. But later, you will see, that the best time they had recorded for Ivory was 16:07. Did they not count this race? Did they lose the time? Did I record someone else? Who even knows.

TRACK MEET 3

I believe this was the worst meet of them all. It was so cold! It alternated between sleeting and snowing and it was all around unpleasant. 

It was probably nice that Ivory ran more sprints this day, because it might have helped to keep her warm. Here she is finishing a sprint.

For the 4x100, it was so cold, Ivory wore her hoodie. She's over there in the middle wearing a dark blue hoodie and probably freezing. (She was usually the third leg.)

Lots of people had umbrellas, but the wind made sure you left nice and damp no matter what. You can tell by Ivory's mile time that it was miserable. She wasn't even close to her normal time, and I don't blame her. It was a yucky day.

TRACK MEET 4

The weather finally caught up to what it should have been for this meet. It was still cool, but nothing we couldn't handle after three other frozen events. 

They still had Ivory doing the sprinting events.

And she still did the mile. Everyone seemed more cheerful. Guess the sun will do that.

I didn't keep track of her time. I think I was solo. But she was probably right on par for her normal times. 

The good news is that she qualified for a couple events in Alpine Days. She would be running the 800, mile, and 2 mile. And I believe the girls even qualified for the 4x100 relay, but I think all of them agreed that it wasn't worth it and they didn't want to run. 

ALPINE DAYS

Alpine Days is so fun. It spans two days and it is so fun to go and watch all these kids at the top of their game, compete. I got ahold of a list that told the times, so I could see where Ivory fit and where she was probably going to come out in the standings. But that is what makes it so cool. There is always those kids who beat the odds, or find something deep inside them and break a record, whether their own, or a school one. I only got June to come watch with me. It makes sense since she too competed in Alpine Days back in the day. 

Obviously the focus for me is on Ivory, but there were a few other interesting things going on that day.

*Sophie did amazing. She is a girl who used to live in my neighborhood and I watched her grow up, so it was so cool to see her potential blossom. She is in 7th grade and she killed it. She is such a fast sprinter. At all the meets, it wasn't even close, but at Alpine Days, one of her races was so close, they had to go to the photo finish to call it. She won. It was awesome.

*7th grade boys mile runners had two false starts. The first was a boy who fell down and then the second was the same boy who lost a shoe. Never seen two like that.

*In the 7th grade girls mile, one girl crowded out another. It was pretty bogus, but we found out later that she was disqualified. That was the right call I think.

Ivory did great. She ran the mile the first day. I forgot to take a picture of where she was predicated to place. But the placement doesn't matter as much to me. I always hope that my kids can beat their best time. Ivory is such a good pacer for the mile. And she is a great finisher. She passed some people right at the end. 

She got a PR of 6:15. She came in 9th overall, which is one place off getting points and having your name read. During the race, a girl ran in front of Ivory and blocked her, forcing Ivory to jump out and run around her. Ivory didn't let it phase her. The girl wasn't penalized, but it was bad form. I'm proud of Ivory for not letting it shake her.

Day two brought more racing. Ivory did great on the 800. I told her not to run too hard since she wasn’t going to win. She was number 15 on the list and I wanted her to save some energy for the 3200m.

But she still kicked it up a little and although she came in 15th still, she got a PR with 2:55. Super proud of her. That is over ten seconds faster than her best time.

Next was the 2 mile. Her last "recorded" time was 16:07, so I was hoping she could get under 16 minutes. But in retrospect, I have that other time of 14: 44. So I'm not sure what to believe. She was number 9 on the list, so I was also hoping she could pass at least one person so her name could be read in the top 8 and she could get points for her team. 

She started off in the back, but kept running people down. It was awesome to watch. It is not easy to pass people when they spread out. But she ran them down. She ended in 6th place with a great sprint finish and she got a time of 14:27. Amazing!! I was so proud of her. Seriously, she did great. Then stupidly, they only read out the top five names for this event. Why? Once again, they didn’t read her name, but she did get points for her team! Go Ivory. 

There was another false start or two that day. One was bad with a three boy pileup. There was quite a wait while they bandaged them up. The one boy wasn’t hurt much, but the other two had injuries on their hands and knees. They were opposite knees, so when they stood up, they looked like mirror images. And those two boys came in first and second. That was pretty awesome!

I heard later that overall, Ivory's school got a lot of second place finishes. 7th grade girls, 8th grade boys, 9th grade boys, often by only a point or two. Good job our school! This ended up being a great track season, despite the cold start. Ivory probably won't do track in High School, so I'm glad she had this year.