Today was state cross country meet for my daughter's team. My daughter battled injury and illness all season so she there as one of two backups. The team was the favorite to win, and one of the girls (who I coached in middle school) was top 3 overall favorite.
Last year, our top runner fell on mud 1/2 mile in and broke her tailbone, but limped on, still finishing in 44th place. The team placed 3rd overall.
This year, our top runner fell on mud 1/2 mile in, likely overdid herself trying to catch back up, and her asthma flared up. She actually passed out and collapsed on her face with 400 yards to go, not finishing the race. The other runners generally ran ok (3 in the top 15 for All State award) but not enough to compensate for runner 1 not finishing. The team finished in 4th.
Rough year. 4th in state is good, but disappointing when you are one of the top favorites to win overall. There's lots of lessons from sports, but it doesn't make it easy when you're in the middle of one of them. If the top girl ran a normal race and finishes top 3, they win state. Tough to feel like you let down your team (even though it's really a team sport, and you sink or swim together). To have fluke incidents 2 years in a row that derail title hopes is tough. Although I told the girl that not many people can say they actually ran hard enough to make themself physically pass out, which is a high level of toughness.
Maybe next year we'll have to wear longer spikes? Plus I hear it will be at a different course, rather than this cursed one.
Later, went to gym for first run in a while, per PT instructions. Did 1 min run, 1 walk for 10 times, then 2 min run, 1 min walk for 5 times. 2 miles total running. Knee felt ok- we'll see if it's sore tomorrow.
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