A Day at the Races

Today I attended the San Luis Obispo County Track and Field Meet, for high school boys and girls. I had never been to a track meet before, but had two good reasons for going; one was to see Bunny's son, Jack, run the one mile event. Jack is a freshman and he shows strong promise.

The other reason I went was to see senior Jordan Hasay run. Bunny gave me a heads up that Jordan would be running and I wanted to see her run before she leaves for Oregon. Hasay, if you don't know, is a distance phenomenon among high school girls. She ran in the Olympic trials in Eugene and the crowd was chanting, "Come to Oregon". She came on the track and looks just like on TV--long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail that reaches her waist. She didn't PR today, but she was so far ahead of the other girls that it was just a contest to see who would come in second. Kind of like Tiger Woods.

But back to Jack. Bunny had a movie camera but was nervous for her son so SD videotaped the race for her. She said she'd send me a copy, but I don't have it yet. I'll post it when I get it. I brought my camera bag, but when I opened it up at the meet, the camera was missing. Someone had neglected to replace it when he last used the camera, so I don't have any pictures to post either.

Bunny was nervous because Jack was planning to PR in the one mile today. He ran past us at 400 meters and was 3 seconds over what he needed. Then at 800 meters he picked up his pace but was still 3 seconds behind. I don't remember what happened on the third lap; I was just screaming for him. Then finally on the home stretch he gave it all he had and the pain was showing on his face. He did it--4:59, a PR and he reached his goal of sub-5 minutes! It was as exciting as the Olympics for me.

We watched a few other races, then Jordan Hasay's, and afterward went to find Jack. While we were heading there, we saw Jordan being interviewed. I wanted to get her autograph, but was too shy so I asked SD if he would. NFW; he wouldn't do it. So I asked Bunny and she got two autographs, one for her youngest son. Then we went and congratulated Jack. He ran in his new racing flats, but Bunny told him if he did sub-5 she would buy him cleats. Not that he seems to need them, but the other kids run in them. Jack had accompanied Bunny and me on a few Sunday morning training runs and he told his mom he doesn't know how she can stand to run so slow!

As SD and I were leaving the parking lot, we saw Jordan running on her own. Cooling down, I guess. SD commented that's why she's so much better than the others, because she works so hard. We left SLO and headed to Paso Robles so I could pick up my race packet. I'm running the Wine Country Half-marathon tomorrow! I've done a couple of training runs on part of the course, so I have a pretty good idea what to expect. I haven't done any speed training, but I have two goals for tomorrow--run 11 minute miles and not stop for the portapotty. Darrell is running tomorrow and hopefully we can hook up for a photo. I met him at the Big Sur marathon last year.

At the expo, I bought a new running jacket! I figured it was time to retire my blue Northwest Club Run jacket. It served me well for many years, and I've run many races in it. This new one is a bright lime green Moving Comfort, lightweight and with lots of pockets and I got it at an end-of-season price. SD shouldn't have any trouble finding me in a crowd.