This weekend was States! It was a great meet and Belfast was a great place for it (though Leavitt is a good course too.). There were a lot of outstanding performances and it was really fun to be a part of it. We were really happy with how we did and we won with 36 points. Our average time was 19:56, and we got our top 7 in the top 20, which was awesome. Emily came in 2nd with 19:23, followed by Kelsey in 4th, Rachel in 11th, Catherine in 13th, Hannah in 14th, me in 16th, and Paige in 19th. The boys also had a nice showing and came in second with 88 points. In the top 20 was Matt in 2nd with 16:15, Chris in 7th, and Thomas in 13th. It was really exciting watching the races before us, especially with all of the young talent (4 freshmen below 19!). Maine will have a great showing in New Englands Saturday, and probably for years to come.(Photo by Beth Rand)
Saturday was really fun.. even the ride there was entertaining. About an hour into it, a bunch of us had to go to the bathroom so we stopped at a gas station. We had to go really bad, so of course once the bus stopped we raced into the store, where they told us there was no bathroom except for a porta potty outside. So then we bolted to the porta potty and got in line. Unfortunately for Emily she was last in line, so she decided to go in the woods and then stepped in a giant mud puddle and got her lucky pre-race socks wet (and her sandals which she hasn’t seen since.). So that was interesting. Then when we got back on the bus I went under the seats back to Hannah’s seat and grabbed her ankle (her reaction was pretty funny.). Then we got there, walked the course, hung out in our tent for a bit, and warmed up.. during which we had to sprint out of the woods in order to not get trampled by the boys race. Then we raced! Yay! Afterwards we went to awards which was cool (I liked that one clap thing) and hung out with Pickle there. Yay! (sorry I say yay so much) Oh yeah and then afterwards we played Apples to Apples the whole way home, and then had a parade thingy near our school and hung out the bus windows.
Training has been going pretty well. Today we went on a pretty adventurous run though the woods. We ended up bush-wacking and stuff (the trail we went on is in the middle of construction.). And it was really muddy too. It was cool though, it’s always fun to switch up the terrain. Afterwards Emily and I put on war-paint, which was fun but kinda gross.
It’s been a great season and our team has made so much progress since the start. I never thought a year ago that we would have 7 girls in our top 20 at the state meet. We’ve also had some other great meets and experiences, such as Hartford and Rhode Island. If I had to pick my favorite meets though they would probably be Falmouth, our home meet, and Hartford. Falmouth and our home meet were really fun and two completely different courses (home meet is great for PRs and Falmouth is a great, challenging course.). And Hartford was so fun, and it was incredible to race with such talented teams. Though the later part of the season threw some curveballs and didn’t go exactly as I thought it would, our team did incredible as a whole and there were some great races as well as individual performances. It’s sad to think this is my last high school XC season. But luckily there are still two more track seasons, and I will definitely be back to visit the team and watch them kick butt next year. Yay!
Writing this blog (and reading the others) has been really fun.. thank you Derek! Milesplit is a sweet site (it might even top Dyestat) and I loved contributing to it. Great job to all the runners during the season and at States this past weekend! And good luck to everyone going to New Englands! Yay! (had to say it again).