Last year Kelly’s final meet finished with the run of her life. She did it again. At some point Kelly is going to run into physics and not be able to keep making such extraordinary improvements, but she isn’t taking physics this year.

Kelly’s coach told her she could break 22 minutes this meet and wanted to see her finish with a 21 minutes and something…. 59 seconds would do it. Kelly did not think she could break into a 21 time, but her coach insisted she could.

Nicole and I took Kelly out for her last race of the season while Kathy took Claire to a soccer match. As we approached the course, I asked Kelly if she thought she could medal again. (She had gotten a 3rd place medal two weeks prior in an “open” race in Gainesville, which was great.) Kelly did not think so because this JV race would include all the local schools.

Now that’s what she said, but I think she had plans to go all out. I’ve never seen her sprint out of the start the way she did. She set up in the front of the pack early and by 1 mile, she was running third. As the rest of the 5K went on, she held the third place behind number 2 Parkview and number 1 Brookwood. In the last 100 yards, Samantha (who is with Parkview and co-illustrated The Bad Y2K with Kelly seven years ago) made a dash from fourth, surprising Kelly as she passed her. Kelly turned it on, and the two sprinted for the finish, Kelly passing Samantha and securing third place for the team. So the top four were Maroon / Orange / Maroon / Orange.

While we do not have a final time in yet, it appeared to me she finished at 21 min 15 seconds. She shaved off another full minute from her best time of the season! It was really another great run, and Kelly again surprised herself, her coaches, and her friends.

The three of us stayed to watch the varsity team and cheer them on. Nicole and I positioned ourselves at the finish line to count how many girls finished with faster times than Kelly’s. Including both JV and Varsity, Kelly finished number 7 for Brookwood girls and number 18 over all.

Kelly is already talking about trying to get to state next year. So goodbye 22 and goodbye to another great season!