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!

Kelly was invited to run with the Varsity team in the Wendy’s Invitational in Charlotte, NC, substituting for one of the runners who was ill.

The course was tough with some steep hills. One down slope was so steep many runners fell. One guy hurt himself so bad he had to go to the hospital and came home in a hospital gown.

Kelly reports she felt great on her run and was doing well. She started out fast (normally she lags on purpose) and passed more than half of the runners on her team. Because there was no display time clock that she could see, she had to guess her time based on what she heard someone calling out. She wasn’t positive but she knew she broke 23 and may have broken 22. Either way, she thought “I’m going to get runner of the week.” She was very excited.

It took several days for us to get the official times from the people running the meet. Kelly *did* do really well. She finished 11th on her team with a time that was very Varsity like. She also destoryed 23 with a final of 22 min 20 sec. Sure enough she got a Runner of the Week t-shirt for having made such a great improvement.

So does she have her sites set to beat 22? Of course… and now she’s even whispering, “I wonder if I can break 20?” Shhhh….

You can just forget about 23, because I don’t think it has a chance. Kelly has her sights set on breaking 23 minutes for her 5K run, and based on yesterday’s run of 23 min 17 sec, her trend to keep breaking personal best, and the way she tends to just keep improving, 23 doesn’t have a chance. In fact, Kelly spends more time talking about 22.

Saturday was Kelly’s second meet and third “official” time of this year’s cross-country season (including the qualifying trial race.) To letter, this year as a sophomore, she has to break 23 minutes. As a freshman, you may recall, she had to break 23:30 and did it in the “Run of Her Life“. The problem for this meet is she woke up sick Friday morning, could hardly eat, and stayed home all day. I was surprised she even wanted to wake up Saturday morning and run. My hope was she would just finish.

Not only did she finish, she lost a shoe sprinting down the last stretch to pass a girl, and achieved another personal best of 23:17. She was surprised, because she did not feel well and was worried while running that she was not running her best.

Kelly’s other goal is to achieve Varsity status, which she also did in her last meet last year. Varsity is defined as the top 20 runners. She is currently around #23 (not to be confused with 23 minutes.)

Go Kelly!