Bouncing Back

Kathryn and Will decided they wanted to run at a high school's open invitational meet for 5th through 8th graders. This evening, fifth-grader Will entered to run 800 meters, while seventh grader Kathryn signed up for 1600. My Mom and sister Anne joined us. Only one other boy showed for Will's race, while Kathryn ran against eight other girls.

Will ran well, finishing a few seconds ahead of his companion, officially at 2:59. His McMillan Running calculator projects his mile at 6:37. He enjoys running and did very well for his first race on a track!

Kathryn had a rough cross country race Sunday, but showed significant maturity that evening when she told me, "I need to prepare better before the next race. No more sleepovers." I was impressed. She prepared well today and arrived determined this evening.

From the gun, her teammate Kennedy set a blistering pace, running the first 400 in 1:23. Wow. Kathryn hung around, clocking a 1:30. Too fast, I thought. I turned to Kennedy's Mom and said, "This can't last." It didn't, as they both settled in to a more reasonable pace. Kennedy stayed smooth, as Kathryn tracked her, with a girl from another school a few seconds behind.

The girls' form began to deteriorate, but you could see them fight through it. Kathryn finished her third lap with a red face, but with an expression that said, "Last Sunday wasn't me. This is me." She started to close on her friend, but Kennedy found a gear. Both bested the winning time in last year's inaugural meet, Kennedy at 6:56 and Kathryn at 7:03. Kathryn's friend Haile finished fourth. Kathryn's mile equivalent projects to a 7:15.



On the way home, the kids provided race recounts. I dropped the term "negative splits" as a teaching moment, and both kids asked, "What's that?" That's how you lower your times, as I shared some hard lessons I'd learned in a few races.

Earlier in the evening, Dori was a bit down she couldn't attend, since crowd avoidance is on her daily To Do List with her low blood counts. I called her from the track, and also filmed parts of the race and took photos. We watched them tonight, with smiles, attaboys and attagirls.

Tomorrow, Dori and I head to clinic for her check-up and talk with the doctors. Resilience runs in this family!