Track 2013

Although the season isn't completely over since the state meet is this coming Saturday, June 1st, I thought I would still wrap up the track year with a few reflections about the season.   Overall, this season was much better than last year.  Most of the returning students were familiar with the running/warm-up drills so Russ didn't have to start from scratch like last year.  The returning students also knew what was expected of them as far as attendance, dress code, and communication.  We had very few, if any, dress code issues this year, but still had problems with non-attendance and poor communication from the students regarding meet participation.   Russ was constantly revising line-ups because kids would inform him at the last minute that they couldn't be at a meet.   The skipping of practice or coming to practice late was better than last year, but still an area of grief for the head coach.   Hopefully, as we graduate those that can't seem to understand commitment and continue to train the underclassman that come in both verbally by the coach and also by the example of the committed athletes this will continue to improve in future years.  

Since we were in a new conference this year, most of our meets looked different as they were duals.   Due to the poor spring weather, some of those turned into double duals.  The nice thing about these meets was that we could actually win a few, and they were over by about 7:00 because only 2-3 teams were competing.  We did also have a few "real" track meets with 7-8 teams.   We advanced three athletes to state:  a long jumper, a 100m runner, and a 1600m runner.   

Overall, we had a good season and enjoyed getting to know the athletes and watching them achieve PR's throughout the season.

This, however, is still my favorite runner:

He completed the season with a 2:13 PR in the 800m run.  He didn't make his goal of 2:10, but he made a great run at it. 

Asking Coach Dad about his race

Twin coaches

The other kids were troopers again, attending all these meets with their little tent, snacks, and books.  I didn't get a picture of Seth because he was too busy entertaining the team at the team camp area.

State qualifiers in order:  Long jump, 100m, 1600m.