With all of the rain and lightning from yesterday, the second day of the state meet was a loooong one. Our first event was the 4 x 100 prelims at 1:35, the last was the 4 x 400 prelims at 6:45. I will give the meet directors, officials and volunteers credit though, the meet yesterday ran very smoothly, and I noticed no problems with trying to shoehorn in 50% more meet into one single day.
With Thursday being full of high points, I felt Friday we had our share of more high points, but unfortuntaley, we had some low points too. I thought the girls sprint medley ran fantastic. We came into the event ranked 13th, we left with medals and standing on the podium in 8th place. That is really, really awesome, I am so happy and proud for those girls. I thought the Devan ran a really good race in the open 800. She ran a 2:15, came in 8th, got on the podium, and had a very good showing in her first state meet. I am excited to see how she builds on that for future years. And our boys 4 x 400 team, which was comprised almost totally of younger kids, represented themselves very well too, gaining valuable experience and getting that first State meet race under their belts.
Even though they were really expecting to win and they came in second, how can you not be proud of our boys 4 x 200 relay team? Second place is the highest place CHS has ever scored in that event at State, we bettered our time by 2-3 seconds, and we were right in the mix of things the whole way through. Excellent job men, you represented CHS to the best of your abilities and that is all we can ask for. Watch out for them in that 4 x 100 today. I got a feeling they are going to race lights out.
The last race I want to talk about is the open 800 for the men. Nate Purdue had high expectations for this race, but ended up finishing out of the medals. That was a big disappointment, but Nate learned a lot about himself in that race. I still say the open 800 is the toughest race out there, it is an unlaned sprint, with pushing, shoving and tripping going on for 799 meters. Add a wet track, and 18 guys just getting after it, and you are gonna have a Castle View kid getting tripped up and flying out of the pack, or a Poudre kid getting pushed off the track on the backside. To anyone that saw it, it was just a brutal, slugfest, Nascar style of race, and kudos to Connor Winter, who ended up victorious. I think Nate knows that this race does not define who he is as a runner though. Nate is defined by the entire body of work, not just one single race, and the body of work says he is a true champion who will be remembered as one of the best runners CHS has ever produced.
We got one more day, one more day to set some school records, win some medals, and get on the top of that podium! I think today the weather will finally be good track weather, and if you can avoid the traffic revolving around the U2 concert this afternoon, it's is going to be a prefect day!
See everyone at JeffCo or tonight at the banquet!
SEP
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