Track track track track

Track track track track... Track is life for us right now. Let me list 16 track-related things that happened this week:

1. Five afternoons of high school track practice.
2. Five afternoons of middle school track practice.
3. Middle school track uniform distribution.
4. Middle school spring sports parent meeting.
5. We finally received our official middle school track meet schedule, 4.5 weeks after the first day of practice.
6. At 5:15am on Thursday morning, Jeff left to drive our high school star Andrew Garcia on the first leg of his journey to southern CA for the Arcadia track meet. Jeff drove Andrew 30 minutes east to meet Coach Winger en route to the airport. Coach Winger drove Andrew the rest of the way to the airport and the two of them flew from Pasco to southern CA.
7. All day Thursday: donations for Andrew's trip to Arcadia flooded in until the whole $2,300 trip was paid for within a few short hours. With a surplus.
8. From 7:30pm-8:45pm on Friday night: we had 25-30 high schoolers in the barn for a watch party to see Andrew Garcia run his 3200m race at Arcadia.
9. Saturday morning at 6:30am: Jeff left home for the high school to send off the varsity track kids to Pasco for a local big fast meet. This was the first year that enough kids qualified for Pasco to need a school bus to transport them there!
10. Saturday, after those kids and two coaches left on their school bus, Jeff began setting up for our home JV Invitational, the 4th Annual Crowe Classic. 
11. Saturday at 8:45am, I left home with our 3 kids and drove to the HS track to work at the meet.
12. Jay ran four races at the Crowe Classic: the 4x800m relay, the 1600m (5:23), the 800m (2:29), and the 4x400m relay, for a fun finale.
13. At the Crowe Classic: Jeff was head timer and meet host, I was head clerk, and Rose was my assistant.
14. Partway through the Saturday track meet, Amber walked over to the church to attend her friend's baptism. She walked back to the track afterwards. 
15. Our meet ended by 3:30pm, and after cleanup, we were home by 4:45pm. 
16. After a brief dinner break, Jeff and I spent another hour or so entering meet results for field events and distance races. We were officially done with all meet results by 6:30pm, 12 hours after Jeff left that morning.

Now for some journal excerpts to fill in the gaps:

Monday, April 7th: I woke up at 2am and couldn't get back to sleep till after 4am this morning. It was maddening! I read in bed for an hour after trying to get back to sleep for an hour. My brain felt foggy all day today. I still managed to go to the chiropractor, have a good run, play piano, make dinner, and prep for/coach at track practice, but whew, I'm tired!

Right before track practice began, as kids were still arriving, a few scattered big raindrops started to fall. They got thicker until within a few minutes we were in a massive downpour. Just as the rain volume increased, the wind  picked up speed. The fat, fast-falling raindrops were blowing horizontally, soaking us to the skin in less than 60 seconds. I looked at assistant coaches Alfredo and Freddie, and we called out to the kids: "go inside the school!" We gathered our bags and trudged-ran into the wall of wind and rain, getting wetter and wetter, gasping and squealing and slipping, till we crossed the 200 meters of open space to the school. The squall ended a minute or two after we got inside the school gym. We waited a bit longer, and then headed back outside, water still dripping from our faces and jackets. My wet pants stuck to my legs. The weather was dry, breezy, and mild for the rest of practice.

After MS practice ended at 4pm, I spent 45 minutes at the HS track practice before driving Rose and Amber home to eat a quick dinner of crock pot pulled pork sandwiches before piano lessons. Amber and I went to the library during Rose's piano lesson and checked out a stack of new books. When I got home from all that, I put on my pajamas and felt so glad to be in my own warm dry house. Before track practice today, I only sat down on the couch to relax for 20 minutes, right before I left for track practice. The other times I sat were in the car to drive, at the counter on a stool to eat, and to play piano. 

Tuesday, April 8th: Spending a few hours out in the wind each afternoon is exhausting! I'm so tired! Amber mowed another small portion of our lawn when we got home today. She mowed one third of the lawn over 3 days, haha. At this rate she won't be able to mow the whole lawn before the first section needs to be mowed again! I think Jay plans on helping...hopefully.

I caved to the cleaning monster today, and dug in to putting our house back in physical order after the messy chaos of spring break. I cleaned the entire main floor: 2 bathrooms, vacuum, spray mop, wipe counters, clean leaks out of the crock pot, dump crumbs out of the toaster. It was a lot of cleaning, but our house feels better now (and so do I). More wind at track practice. My eyes are heavy.

Wednesday, April 9th: Whew, I made it! I felt tired and unmotivated all day today, but I still managed to balance some rest with productivity. This morning before school, I took Amber to an eye doctor appointment: her prescription went up significantly, poor girl! I helped her pick out some new glasses and even paid the extra $85 for anti-glare lenses. Why won't our insurance cover anti-glare lenses? When I got home from that, I sat on the couch and talked on the phone with Mom for over an hour as a treat to myself. I played piano for an hour, which is equal parts treat and intensity. I talked with my friend Laurs on the phone while hoeing the south front flower bed and planting more wildflower seeds. Blessedly we had enough leftovers for dinner so I didn't have to cook. I got to the middle school just early enough to run two miles before track practice. 

It was our first and possibly only day of the week with nice weather, so I tried to enjoy it. I dealt with a very wild inattentive middle school boy all through the running, plyometrics, and strength workout. Bless me, that boy was all OVER the place. I introduced hurdles to the girls on the track team. Only 3 girls were brave enough to try jumping over a hurdle by the end. Rose was one of them! It was cute. I need to brush up on my hurdle technique teaching skills. Hurdle teaching skills are the only hurdle skills I have, haha.

After track practice ended at 4, we all walked over to the middle school and unearthed the team uniforms. Going into the crowded narrow middle school sports storage room is like spelunking. Coach Freddie and I had to move a giant cart of folding chairs over in the tiny space in order to squeeze in and access our team storage lockers. Then we hoisted five large plastic bins down from up high. We stacked 4 of them onto a rickety green cart and I wheeled it out while Freddie carried the 5th bin. Then the chaos of hunting for sizes and handing out uniforms, shorts, and sweatshirts while marking names on my clipboard began. That activity mostly fried my organizational brain, and my sensory side was also maxed out thanks to the stale smell of a dozen different detergents clinging onto last year's uniforms. 

Right after that was the HMS spring sports parent meeting...4.5 weeks after the first day of practice. Before the meeting I didn't even think about what I might say to the parents. It didn't occur to me to even be nervous or plan something to say for some reason! Honestly, I had already said it all in my weekly emails. So I introduced the coaches briefly, talked about the meet schedule, and then opened it up for questions. About 9-10 parents came. The meeting was over in less than 15 minutes, at 5pm, after one final awkward interaction with a strongly scented relative of one of the kids on my team. Whew. At last I drove home with Rose and Amber. After dinner, we turned around and I drove all three kids to their various church youth activities.

Jeff had parent teacher conferences at the high school tonight, so he didn't get home till after 8pm (he also picked the kids up from church activities). Jeff has been running ragged getting everything ready for the THREE different track meets we have high schoolers competing at this weekend: Andrew Garcia is going to Arcadia, CA. About 20 varsity kids who made the qualifying standard are going to the Pasco meet. And everyone else is staying here in Sunnyside at our home meet, which Jeff is in charge of. I hope he gets enough rest and recovery in and around these next few days. Tomorrow morning he has to get up at 5am to drive Andrew to meet Dan Winger in Prosser. Andrew's family left today to drive the 24+ hours to southern CA so they can watch Andrew's race on Friday night, so Jeff is taking Andrew on the first leg of the journey. Coach Winger is traveling with him to CA. Ahhh, it's crazy track town over here! 

Whenever I feel overwhelmed or irked or stressed or confused or happy or any of the usual emotions that come up as a head middle school track coach, I look at Jeff and see all of those feelings and frustrations amplified times ten in his role as HS head track coach. "It could be worse" is usually the least helpful maxim, but that large dose of perspective definitely helps me not get too wound up about MS track, haha.

Amber hopped over some wickets and hurdles at track practice today. She jumped a hurdle with hilarious form and impressive courage. 

Thursday, April 10th: My eyelids are drooping. This morning I lifted in the barn with friends and then ran 4 miles. After my run, I got sidetracked by the wildly whippy arms of the blackberry and raspberry pants by our driveway. I worked on controlling the long vines and shoots branching off the row of berries for longer than I meant to without gloves and long sleeves. My forearms are scraped up, even though our berries are thornless. Track practice was good. I had the kids run a 9x50m relay with baton handoffs for their workout, so that was fun and new. It's satisfying finding a new workout that works with MS kids. The secret that works best so far is to disguise the running as much as possible. 

I only cooked twice this week, on Sunday and Monday, but I made so much we've had plenty to eat every night since. 3 lbs of penne with 3 lbs of meat in spaghetti sauce, and 9.7 lbs of pulled pork. I alternated between the two meals each night and never got tired of them. We had family scripture tonight and even though we only listened to the app read 2 sections of the doctrine and covenants, it felt like a victory. 

Friday, April 11th: It was a beautiful day today! I went on a run at 6:45am in the pristine cool fresh birdsong-saturated spring air, and got back in time to shower before driving Amber to school. Running first thing in the morning freed up a little more time for me during the day before track practice, which was my plan. I was able to slow down and relax a bit more instead of rushing from one list item to another between Amber's 8:30am school drop-off and leaving at 2pm for MS track practice.

Tonight after family movie night, we went out to the barn and had a watch party for Andrew Garcia's 3200m race at Arcadia. It was so fun and so exciting watching him race on the online video feed! The 25+ track kids who came to watch the race all cheered loudly every time Andrew passed the cameras. It made me so happy and a little emotional hearing their genuine love and support for Andrew. Andrew didn't finish as well as he hoped for. His time was 9:40. Hopefully he didn't feel too pressured to perform a certain way. We definitely don't want him to feel pressure from the coaches! That will suck the joy out of running!

Tomorrow is the Crowe Classic. Send help. 

Saturday, April 12th: Whew, I survived the Crow Classic Invitational today. From the minute I arrived at the track, I never got to sit down once--I didn't even get a toilet break. Several times throughout the meet, as I lugged starting equipment around to the different start lines and read out runners' names and answered questions, I thought "ahhhhhggg this is endless torment!" It's not that I dislike being head clerk at a track meet...but it's just such a big job that requires my presence, energy, and attention all day long. Jeff and I finished all Crowe Classic stuff by 6:25pm tonight. Whew. I'm too tired to write more. Zzzzzzzz...

Sunday, April 13th: I slept for 9 hours last night. It was such a blessed relief to sleep so well and so long after that intense day of work yesterday. We went to church and exchanged greetings of longsuffering sun-kissed camaraderie with the two families who helped out at the track meet yesterday.

If you're still reading, you deserve a prize. How about a handful of last-minute pictures from the week:

Jay snuggled up in his hooded wearable blanket after yet another windy chilly track practice.

These cute middle schoolers crouched down into a four point stance to get ready to start their run at practice on Tuesday. They crack me up!

Foot massages during family scripture: my favorite, although I ended up giving Rose's post-run fragrant feet a rub so maybe not exactly my favorite, haha...

Amber, reading in the waiting room at the eye doctor. I'm excited for her new glasses to be ready--I think they will make a big difference for her!

Views from my early morning zen-run on Friday. This is Cemetery Road, about half a mile from our house.

Irrigation is on!

Running past baby apple trees.

Williamson Road north of us is one of my favorites. It has orderly orchards, a swooping hill, and swishing curves, all opening up to a view of Mt. Adams.

The arrow sign seems to be pointing to Mt. Adams on the horizon.

Home sweet home: this is the time of year where fragrant purple weeds grow on the lot in front of our house and it looks lush and pretty.

The Barn Andrew Garcia Arcadia Watch party! It was hard to get everyone in the picture, so lots of people aren't visible.

There he his! On the starting line, six from the right!

Andrew, finishing his 3200m race--9:05 won it, and his time was 9:40. Even with that "slower" time, Andrew is still faster than anyone in Sunnyside High School history.

Clerking it up at the Crowe Classic with Rose! She held the flag and helped do anything me or the starter needed help with--mostly running errands and carrying stuff.

I had to get one more picture with the master meet-host-timer-extraordinaire, Jeff. 

It is super hard taking pictures of my own children while working at a track meet, so I got this great one of a kid from Davis in front of Jay...

Jay, waiting for the baton in the 4x400m relay. He wanted to try doing four events at one meet just for fun, because we always talk about how long and tiring those quadruple event track meets are. At the end of the day, Jay had to agree that running four events in one day is indeed exhausting.

Jay was the last runner on the track in the last heat of the last event! Woot! Haha, we put together a few 4x400m JV teams for fun and Jay jumped into one of them. After this, Jeff held an unofficial, for-fun "pole vaulter's 4x100m relay" where instead of a baton, runners carried a pole vaulting pole! Three teams competed, and it was hilarious. 100 meters is a long way to run while carrying a 14 foot long pole.

Results party! Jeff always gets fried asparagus from Burger Ranch (a local specialty) to eat while entering meet results. When I sent this picture to my Mom, she said "is that limp fried asparagus which Jeff is brandishing symbolic of your energy level after such a long day?" YES.

Amber and Rose, walking into church on Sunday morning. (Jeff and Jay arrived at church earlier than us girls so Jay could help set up the sacrament.)