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This week was a placeholder week--a sort of calm between storms of busyness. Only two track meets (one middle school, one high school). Mild beautiful weather. It was a welcome breather between the two busiest weeks of track season. The eye of the storm was so calm that I found myself relaxing into it maybe too much. We only had family scripture two times. I barely took any pictures. I watched an entire 16 episode K-drama series. Work hard, rest hard, right? 

It's not like we were twiddling our thumbs; I went to a meet in Yakima with 41 kids from my middle school track team. One of my biggest coach triumphs was getting a cute 7th grade girl on my team to do the 400m. She flat out refused to do the 400m race last week, so I told her she had to run the 200m in a PR of 35 seconds or else I would put her in the 400 next time. Last week she managed to run a 35 second 200m, so I didn't force her to run the 400 at this week's meet. While we were choosing events this week, though, I did explain that if she ran a 400m race at a pace 5 seconds slower per 200m than her 200 PR, she would get a much higher place than she did in the 200m. She said she'd think about it. 

It turns out in order to get her to run the 400, I had to convince her best friend to run the 400 as well. It worked, and they both ran it this week. The most gratifying part for me as a coach was, this girl got 2nd place and ran just a 100th of a second off of what I predicted she would run. BOOM, that's a huge coach WIN! This girl was so happy getting such a good place--she was 9th place in the 200m before. I was pleased with myself for playing the long game and letting her learn through experience what her strengths are. Whew, coaching is a lot--that was just one of my fifty kids!

One of my girls broke 7 minutes for the first time in the mile, and one of my boys broke 6 minutes for the first time--I love having distance runners on my middle school track team!

One more memorable moment from this meet was from my assistant coach Freddie's 8th grade boy long jumpers. They came in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th place in the long jump! It was awesome! I was so happy for Freddie, because like me, he's a distance runner who has learned to coach "foreign" events. 

It was our best meet of the season, with meaningful PRs, 14 top 3 finishes, and 36 top 5 finishes We were competing against just two other teams, both of which were well over twice our size. I was going to leave it at that, but I'm surrendering and giving a full-on coach speech. First, some background info: middle school track meets have 13 events (8 track events, 5 field events). In our league, kids compete only against their grade level, so there are 13 events for 7th graders and 13 events for 8th graders. For 7th and 8th graders of one gender combined, that's 26 events. 26 possible 1st place finishes, 26 possible 2nd place, etc. means 78 possible top 3 spots and 130 possible top 5 places.

We brought 25 girls and 16 boys to this meet--82% of our team roster. Selah Middle School has 108 kids on their roster, and West Valley Middle School has 170 kids on theirs. If each school only brought 82% of their team like us, that's 88 kids from Selah and 139 from West Valley. So, breaking it down by gender: my 16 boys made up a scant 13% of the boys competing in this meet. My 25 girls accounted for 18% of the girls in this meet. Those numbers give our finishes some serious perspective:

My cute middle school girls placed in the top three 9 times! That means 35% of the events had top 3 finishes from a team making up only 18% of the competitors! (That's 11.5% of the 78 total possible top 3 slots.) It gets better when we expand to top 5 finishes: my girls took 20 top five finishes, which means they finished in the top five in 76% of the events at this meet! That's 15% of the 130 possible top 5 slots. My tiny team of 16 boys finished in the top three 5 times (19% of events), and in the top 5 in 61% of the events--that's 12% of the 130 possible top 5 spots. That is insane for a team that accounted for a mere 13% of the participants! 

Even more important than place finishes are personal records: my 16 boys got 15 PRs at this meet, and my 25 girls got 24 PRs. 40 all-time personal best performances! It was a great day to be a coach.

Coach math is my favorite math. I do need to credit Google for doing the percentages for me. Anyways, my little team had a big showing at this track meet, and it was so much fun to be their coach. The weather was beautiful, nobody hid in the bathroom, and everyone did their best! One kid did cry after a bad landing in long jump, but they weren't avoidant tears. Team morale was at an all-time high. It felt like a reward for all the ups and downs that come with coaching fifty 13 year olds. On our way home, we stopped at Miner's, a burger joint that caters to busloads of people and feeds coaches and bus drivers for free. I thoroughly enjoyed my free Big Miner burger and massive quart of strawberry lemonade. Track meet hunger is deep and gnawing, and that meal filled my belly, heart, and soul. 

Ok, I wish I had more to say about things closer to home, but it was a pretty quiet week in our family. Jay and Rose competed at a track meet in Moses Lake on Thursday, but I couldn't go due to middle school track practice and the fact that Moses Lake is 1 hour and 45 minutes away. Jay ran a season best time of 11:07 in the 3200m, and Rose ran her first 400m race in a PR of 1:17. She came back with a 3:03 in the 800m, just 1 second off her PR. Jeff had to leave the meet for a few hours to drive an athlete to the hospital in the tri cities so this kid could say goodbye to his dying father. That was heavy for Jeff, being there for that kid at such a sad tender time.

We had no school on Friday, so we got some yardwork done--mostly mowing. I got to go running with the sweet high school track girls from the distance squad. Their pace was humbling, I nearly got dropped during the last mile, and my tendons were throbbing afterwards, but it was fun! 

Today at church I faced one of my greatest church fears/dreads and taught a Sunday school lesson about the book of Leviticus. I think I learned the most that I have ever learned from Leviticus, so I guess I am grudgingly grateful I was able to face my fear!

I have ten pictures from this week:

View from my middle school team's spot in the bleachers at our meet on Wednesday. Our team uniforms are black and white, so that's us standing by the fence.

My backpack full of emotional support batons--there's a longtime joke on the high school track team that Jake, one of the coaches, hoards batons in his backpack. When we were practicing relay handoffs the day before our meet, I brought 10 batons to practice and sent this picture to the high school coaches with the message "Jake: just so you know, you are not alone."

I asked my assistant coaches if it was too weird to take a selfie with my massive beloved strawberry lemonade at Miner's, and they offered to take a picture for me. (Coaches and bus drivers sit in the kitchen at Miner's for our free food.)

Old Navy had a sale on my favorite running shorts of all time, so I gifted myself several cheerful new pairs. I still marvel at the fact that out of all the fancy/expensive brands I've tried, Old Navy of all places still has my ultimate favorite running shorts for $10 each. I may or may not have enough running shorts now to wear a different pair every day for a month!

Amber went on a few runs this week after a few sporadic weeks. We just got her new shoes to replace the holey worn out size 9 Brooks Ghost 17 shoes that she got a year ago. She's in a women's size 9.5 now!

On Friday night, Jeff and I went on a "date" to Walmart to pick up a new box fan, since our 20 year old fan started sparking when we got it out this week. I took a selfie to commemorate an Outing, Alone Together, that had nothing to do with coaching or running. Walmart is very un-romantic, but we had fun anyways.

The marigolds that I transplanted a week ago are still deciding if they like their new home. The orange ones are happier about it than the yellow ones.

Here's the board after my youth Sunday school lesson on Leviticus. We drew and furnished the Tabernacle on the board. My questions to think about were "how can I take the temple with me?" and "what can I sacrifice to the Lord?" 

Car ride home from church with Amber in the back seat while Rose drove.

The girls' piano recital is looming at the end of the month, so Rose has been practicing more. I love hearing her play and improve on some tricky, beautiful music.