My parents drove up and are meeting us at the race. Dad has a couple of Monday appointments at the Mayo clinic in Rochester so they are driving up early to see the girls run, play soccer, and play hockey. You know, typical full weekend.
G got off work at 2pm and we headed south to get D2 from school, then on to the race. The highway in a critical stretch farther south, where we are going, goes down to one line and the convenience electronic signage says there is a 40 minute delay through that stretch. As we came up on the exit to get D2 from school we could see the cars backed up. I'm pretty sure it was more than a 40 minute delay.
We've got exactly 50 minutes to get 30 miles. We employed the tools of the day, the iPhone and GPS Maps, to figure an alternative route. Amazingly we chose just the right roads avoiding several small towns and getting back on the expressway just past the one lane reduction and got to the race with about 5 minutes to spare. We greeted my parents, dropped off D2 with them, and said we'd be running around watching and cheering the race. See you at the finish.
The race meandered around ball fields and next to a lake and was not the most spectator friendly course. There was going to be some serious running involved to take in this race. Our first vantage point was at about 500 meters. The girls got out nicely and were running in a team pack of 6 near 15th place. We yelled encouragement to the girls we new, which amounted to TJ, O, and M. TJ was looking very relaxed. That was good, because it was hot. 88 degrees and humid. Nasty racing weather.
We sprinted between ball fields to get to our next vantage, near the 1 mile mark. The girls had moved up. The group of 6 were in or near the top 10, and TJ had moved up to 3rd, 20 yards from the leaders, going through the mile in 6:58. We told her to stay relaxed and that there was lots of racing left to do. We turned to our next cheering spot at 1 1/3 miles. In that 1/3 mile TJ had moved up the 20 yards and was now in second closing in on the leader. The girls ran back behind some trees out of view and we wouldn't see them again until 300 yards from the finish.
According to TJ she kept thinking the race was nearing it's end so she surged several times to pass and then put distance on the girl in second. But she wasn't near the end. We could hear the announcer saying TJ was leading but we couldn't see her. Finally we saw the lead ATV and then TJ and the former leader 10 yards trailing.
When she came by use with only 300 yards to go she looked spent and the girl in second was chewing up the distance closing a 10 yard lead in a scant few seconds. TJ surged again killing the opponents motivation, but then followed the lead truck as it turned off the course just before the finishing chute. The fans all yelled at her to go the other way and she recovered in time to finish the race in first. That could have been embarrassing. 1 of 265 participants.
Her finishing time was 13:35 for two miles. She ran a first mile of 6:58 and a second mile of 6:37 for a :21 second negative split. Wow! I'm wondering what she can run the 1 mile in. Maybe break 6:00? I didn't break 6:00 for the mile until I was a freshman in high school.
Her teammates finished 4th, 5th, 6th, and her two friends M finished 8th and O finished 9th. Their team score was an outstanding 24, and their team took the win. The rival school from last week ran most of their good 7th graders at the JV 'B' instead of the 'C' level, but still managed a strong 3rd place.
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