First Cross Country Meet

Anthony's high school soccer coach, who is new this year, wanted all of the soccer kids to also train with the cross country team. That way they could get some conditioning before soccer season. A few of the boys are good enough not only to train with the the cross country team, but to actually compete with them. Anthony is one of those kids.

Today was Anthony's first cross country meet. We only found out about it this week, so we didn't know what to expect. Even Anthony didn't know what to expect. He didn't know, for example, if he was running with the Varsity or the Junior Varsity team. All he knew was that he had to show up at the school by 6am this morning.

I came home from dropping off Anthony and made breakfast for the rest of the family, after swinging by Starbuck's for a treat for me and the grocery store for turkey bacon and other items. Patrick and I got to the meet after the Varsity boys had already started running (at 8am). We found out then that Anthony was running with the Junior Varsity Heat 1, so his race started at 9am.

Patrick met the cross country coach and chatted a little about how Anthony sometimes runs so hard that he throws up. He said that Anthony was doing pretty well despite that. Patrick went to pick up Anthony from school just now, so I might hear differently when he gets home, but even though there were a lot of other boys that finished before Anthony, he seemed to be the first one from his high school to finish the Junior Varsity race. Patrick's unofficial iPhone time was 19:22 for approximately 2.9 miles. He seemed to be really hurting at the end. (This picture was taken about 600 meters from the finish line. Don't ask me why they switch from miles to meters.) While most of the other boys were sprinting at the finish, he did not. I hope he's feeling okay. His social schedule is booked for this evening. :)