North Harrison

Ladies,

It's way past late on a school night, and my day starts very early tomorrow, so I'm going to try to keep this brief.

This meet went way beyond what I could have expected. Having started speed work this week, I would not have been surprised if you all ran slower tonight. That's not the only reason. We've never run particularly fast at this meet. It's a good place to see some of our conference opposition, as we did tonight, but I also like it's a fairly good sized invite, so it helps get us ready for tournament. Anyway, the meet was scheduled, so was speed work, so we made the best of it.

Boy, did you!

As always, we wanted to compete well with Salem. They did not bring a full team tonight, though their top-2 did show. They are tough nuts to crack, and we haven't solved that puzzle yet. We will. We're getting tougher and faster all the time.

How tough? How fast? Let's look.

Runner	Mile 1	Mile 2	Pace	Finish	Pace
Carrie	6:51:00	14:00:00	7:09:00	21:44:00	7:00:39
Joslyn	6:54:00	14:21:00	7:27:00	22:03:00	7:06:46
Zoe	7:21:00	15:16:00	7:55:00	23:49:00	7:40:58
Katlyn	7:25:00	15:26:00	8:01:00	23:56:00	7:43:14
Chelsey	7:44:00	16:12:00	8:28:00	25:15:00	8:08:43
Madison	7:52:00	16:12:00	8:20:00	25:16:00	8:09:02
Diana	7:45:00	16:00:00	8:15:00	24:55:00	8:02:15
Cynthany	8:15:00	17:13:00	8:58:00	27:02:00	8:43:14
Sara	7:50:00	17:15:00	9:25:00	27:11:00	8:46:08
Kate	7:56:00	17:55:00	9:59:00	29:06:00	9:23:14

Carrie was 54 seconds faster.

Joslyn was 8 seconds faster. (PR)

Zoe was 25 seconds faster. (PR)

Katlyn was 34 seconds faster. (11 seconds from PR)

Chelsey was 11 seconds faster. (PR)

Diana was 51 seconds faster. (10 seconds from PR)

Cynthany was 9 seconds faster. (PR)

The one and only bad thing about this meet was Madison is nursing a sore hip. This necessitated holding her back to practice pace. Had she been 100% we would likely have dropped 3 minutes on the total time - and won. This is not a negative! It shows you how strong we really are. Without one of our top-3 we were still in this race enough for 2nd. We'll see Jasper again at the end of the season. We'll have Madison then. What we do want to learn from it is we need to be proactive about taking care of our nicks and cuts. Don't wait until a problem is full-blown... ice is your friend. As is stretching. Injury is a part of our sport, but it can be minimized if we all do what we can to care for it.

Back to the positive!

There were so many heroes tonight it's hard to pick any single one out. I love that Carrie returned to her old self and fearlessly went to the hunt. On this course those splits were right on the money. You also held that 7-minute target I gave you (for the average). Bravo!

Joslyn beat herself up a bit over her race, but she shouldn't. It was a great effort. I know, given her muscle type, her legs are still beaten down from the speed work we started. Patience! You will rebound even stronger and faster than before. Oh, and let's not forget you did PR!

Zoe is on fire. She is ripping time out of her PR every meet and shows no sign of slowing down. She will be in the 22's before you know it. 

If Zoe is the flame, Katlyn is the coals. She's a slow cooker, and she too is stripping hunks of time off, just like Zoe. And I know she's still sore from the speed work. Look for Katlyn to be in the 22's soon as well.

Diana... O.M.G! I wish you could all have seen her motor up that hill at mile 2. It was simultaneously breathtaking and hilarious. She set her jaw and performed the most perfect hill repeat I've ever seen, and cranked past 3 runners while doing so. It looked like someone had dumped kerosene on her back side and set it on fire! Way to get that monkey off your back!

Cynthany certainly came back from near calamity last race to a much more controlled effort this time. She was fighting hard for spots throughout the race. Great job!

Chelsey and Madison wound up side-by-side, and it looked like a see-saw contest between the two. That's good. I don't like to see teammates coast along with one another, and it didn't look that way to me. I think you both wanted to beat the other. As you should!

Sara, I hope you got farther along, even if only a little, before the real pain set in. You looked better from where I stood. I know your practice distance is going up, so hopefully things are about to turn the corner.

Kate, you just can't seem to shake this thing. You were quiet all night, something you never are. I know you didn't feel good, so great job going out there to make the effort. It didn't go unnoticed. 

I want to finish this off with a huge THANK YOU! You all encapsulated everything I've tried to convey to you this week in one gutsy race. Each and every one of you could have mailed it in... it was hot, you were tired, your legs were sore... but you didn't. I sincerely felt you all fought for your very best, and I cannot believe how lucky I am to have such a team. Because you took that chance, some really great things happened. It's worth the risk! 

Ok, one more "one more thing". For those that missed the team bus ride home, rest assured we've found Chloe's replacement. Cynthany brings the party! She had the girls doing choreographed dances on the bus (don't ask me how), though her taste in music can best be described as "Chicks Angry at Dudes Pop". ;)