Olympia Invite

Both kids ran a lot over the summer. In order to qualify for the Olympia Invite trip, the boys had to run 200 miles and the girls had to run 170 miles. Nathan kept up his running in the evenings after he got home from his internship. Elizabeth struggled with shin splints as usual so mostly stuck to the treadmill as it was less impact on her poor shins. She has found taking iron supplements seems to help a little bit. 

Jeremy and I made the trip as well as it's fun to watch them run and we can do a little careful food allergy watching and visit friends who live in the area. I will do that post later. Here are the posts from the races. 

This invite, the girls run by grade level rather than by varsity and JV. Here are the sophomore girls getting their bibs and putting them on. 

Boys getting their pre race talk. They got neat new jackets this year! 

 

These pictures ended up being backwards but here is Jeremy coming into the finish line of the Fun Run! Before all the races today, anyone in the community could run the course so Jeremy took the chance. The weather was his perfect running weather. Cloudy and cool. I thought he could do it in 20 minutes and I guessed about right. He did 20:05! 

Here was the start of his race. Elizabeth's friend's Dad also did the race. He was a lot faster than Jeremy and is training for the upcoming Ironman here in the Tri Cities. 

Here are the sophomore girls heading out to do their warmups. 

One of Nathan's teammates brings a ping pong table to meets now. Nathan is apparently refereeing this match. 

Here's Nathan playing. 

Sophmore race huddle. 

Warmups at the start line. 

Elizabeth during the start of the race. 

Pushing into the chute for the finish. She passed 2 girls right at the finish. One was her own teammate. She basically tied her PR time which she got on this exact course last year. She was a little sad she didn't push a tiny bit harder to knock off one second. She ran 16:22.  

Senior boys warmup. 

Lacing up their spikes. 

Nathan at the beginning of the race. 

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These pictures accidentally got put here but this was after the race. 

Nathan came in for a triumphant finish. 

I couldn't believe it when I looked at the clock and saw 11:42! He had PR'd by a huge amount which was absolutely crazy. He finished in 19th place so got the coveted sunglasses that the top 20 finishers get. However.....

After the race, we found out he had rolled his ankle when he came down wrong on the hill just before the final sprint. He felt it go numb and just went for it anyway and got his huge PR. However, he had sprained his ankle quite badly. His teammates helped him to the athletic trainer from Olympia High School. 

They had to wait while another kid got his sprained ankle taped up. 

The trainer said not to worry about urgent care as the bones were fine. It's the tendons and ligaments and it's definitely a sprain. She wrapped it up and said to see his athletic trainer on Monday. 

Even though the ankle was bad news, BOTH the senior boys and the sophomore girls won the meets for teams!  The two teams my kids were on for Hanford were the only two teams that won for Hanford. That was kind of funny. Nathan was 2nd among Hanford boys so his points really helped. Elizabeth was 5th among Hanford girls so her points counted too. The top 5 runners count for points. 

It was very successful for both runners. Nathan's next meet is uncertain as we just don't know how he will heal now. He may have to miss a few meets. We will see how it goes. 

Elizabeth rode home with us as she was tired and wanted a smooth ride. Nathan took his last bus ride home from Olympia with the team. However, his ankle hurt too much to drive home from school so his friend had to give him a ride and I had to go to the school to get the car.