Kelly participated in her first cross country meet this morning. This was a county meet, so there were hundreds of kids participating. While the morning was cool at first, it warmed up, and unfortunately for Kelly, the JV girls ran last.
The course wove in and out of a huge soccer field complex and included a couple of tricky hills and bridges. Kelly started off strong, pulling well ahead of her Brookwood peer group. In fact, she pulled too far ahead and clocked a 7 minute 16 seconds on her first mile. While she has been able to run 3, 4, and 5 miles in practice fine, by the time Kelly passed her second mile mark, she was in bad shape with a terrible side ache. Getting dizzy, she sat on the side of the course almost about to pass out.
A kind dad (not me... I was waiting to photograph her around the bend and didn't see) carried her to the Brookwood tent to recover. She felt awful and took about 15 minutes before she could even try to stand back up. She napped all the way home (with air conditioning turned on to max.)
It probably didn't help that she had been sick earlier in the week, and was still a little on the mend. But we are still proud of her, and doesn't she look like the real athlete with her race number and her uniform? For at least a mile-and-a-half she looked like a pro!
The Start
Going Strong At 1.5 Miles
Comments (4)
I agree Kelly is a brave girl, but I think she can be brave about other things than cross country racing. She should limit herself to circumnavigating 2849.
Posted September 17, 2006 8:48 PM
One mile in 7 minutes and 16 seconds is still really fast!
Posted September 18, 2006 8:53 AM
Kelly is going to be a star! And she looks so good in her new outfit!
Posted September 19, 2006 4:32 PM
Kelly IS a star. I admire her from afar. She is fast like a car and friendly like Radar. She is a bit bizarre, but we love her unconditionalare.
Posted September 27, 2006 10:02 AM