Finales

Even though there are somehow still 3 weeks of school left, this was a week of finales. Jay and Rose each had their last track meets of their respective track seasons. I finished my third season as middle school head track coach. Rose had her last orchestra concert of middle school. Jay turned 16 and got his driver's license. Jeff and I learned firsthand how expensive it really is to insure a teenage boy driver. My brain is foggy and sluggish from end-of-track-season fatigue, but I'll do my best to expound a little on these finales!

The War of Attrition

Track season is a war of attrition. Little by little over the long weeks of late night meets and daily practices, the fatigue builds. Add in a sprinkling of extra-intense weeks with more responsibilities and that wear and tear speeds up. This season we seem to have had a few more of those extra-intense weeks than usual. Either that or the busy weeks we had were just closer together?  We are one week away from the high school district meet and two days away from the last middle school meet, and let me tell you, we are feeling it. All of it: the fatigue and readiness for track season to be over, but also the fun and satisfaction of the whole season of coaching coming together. It's a potent mix of emotions and energies. 

Pleasant Mountain

On Saturday, May 10th, we stayed in Buena Vista as long as possible before driving the 3.5 hours back to Washington DC. I went on a glorious morning run and then we had a decadent large breakfast at our Bed and Breakfast. After that, we went back to the mountains for one more hike, this time down nostalgic Wiggins Spring Road to the Pleasant Mountain loop trail.

SVU Day 2: Graduation and Bluff Mountain

Friday, May 9th was Laurs' graduation day! It was so special to be there for her as her only friend and family member in attendance. I love my dear friend. 

Devil's Marbleyard

The first thing Laurs and I did together on our first morning in Buena Vista, Virginia was our all-time favorite hike: Devil's Marbleyard. We used to hike this natural granite boulder field at least once per semester. Freeform bouldering and sweeping vistas: sign us up! We loved this hike back in our younger college days, and we were realistic enough to wonder how it would hit our almost-forty-year-old bodies! Thankfully we managed it just fine without any injuries beyond a few scrapes.

Those gentle green Appalachians have a hold on my SOUL.

VA, BV, SVU, BFF

I have told this story before, but here's a brief backdrop: I met my friend Laurs as randomly assigned roommates as freshmen at SVU in the fall semester of 2004. We both ran cross country and track for SVU, and we quickly became good friends. After Jeff and I got married in 2006, Laurs had a different, non-Shaina roommate for a semester before she left SVU to serve a mission. Laurs did not end up returning to SVU due to marriage and moving and life. Fast forward 18 years: Laurs recently finished her degree!! 

Blue McNuggets, Sardines, Fried Asparagus, etc.

If "you are what you eat," this week was even more interesting than usual...

I. Blue McNuggets

On Monday, April 28th, Rose had her second middle school track meet of the season, a 70 minute bus ride way out in Naches, at the edge of the Cascade Mountains. Which meant as the head coach, I had my second middle school track meet of the season too. Several miniature headaches popped up here and there as we neared departure, with a kid wanting a last-minute grade check so he could be eligible to compete (athletes have to be passing all classes to compete). The procedure is supposed to go like this: grade checks are done every two weeks. Kids who are passing can compete; kids who aren't can't compete until they get their grade up. But it's bad form to do it all last minute and the athletic director does impose a deadline for grades. That's what the grade check is for! Anyways, all of the kids on my team but one were eligible to compete. This kid really wanted to come to the meet, so he went into desperation mode.

Amber's Primary Talk

Amber gave a talk in primary at church today! She got to choose her topic from a general conference talk, and she immediately knew which talk she wanted to use. The most memorable conference talk for Amber last month was the one that mentioned salmon. Amber got on the Gospel Library App and found that talk all on her own before church: Our Heavenly Guidance System by Elder Sergio R. Vargas. Then I asked her questions to get her writing. She was so focused on the life cycle of salmon that she didn't have much to say for an introduction, so I typed out a few simple sentences and had her read them to see if she wanted to add anything. She approved my sentences. I asked her to tell me why she liked the talk and give a testimony about what she learned from it, and I quickly typed what she said at the end of the talk.

Amber did a great job giving her talk in primary at church today!

Big steps

It was a week of big steps:

Jay got his first PR of the year in the 1600m race on Thursday night! He shaved .60 of a second off his best time from last year, finishing in 5:17.90. A PR is a PR! I was sad I missed it--the meet was in Wenatchee on a weeknight, and I had to coach middle school track practice in Sunnyside at the same time so I couldn't make the 2.5 hour drive. (Plus I honestly don't drive to Wenatchee on a weeknight unless it's for the district meet.) But Jeff was there for Jay's PR! Jay ran 4 races in 48 hours this week: he ran the 1600m and 3200m on Thursday night, and then the 2k steeplechase and the 1600m on Saturday! It was his first time ever running the steeplechase, and I was impressed that he volunteered to give it a try because he is no hurdler. But he managed to hurdle at least a third of the barriers, and hand-vault-clamber over the rest of them in the five lap race, finishing in 8:11. It was so fun to watch, and I felt so proud of Jay for trying something so difficult and new!

Flowers, sugar, and track meets

Flowers, sugar, and two track meets defined our week: Our lawn is polka-dotted with happy yellow dandelions, and our pear trees are blooming fluffy white blossoms. In a mid-season, tired-and-maxed-out effort to celebrate Holy Week more fully, I got a variety of sweet treats from the store and we had one every time we read some Easter-related scriptures as a family. Hopefully it made the week and the scriptures sweeter on more than just the tastebud level. And of course, there were two track meets this week: our first middle school meet and yet another high school meet. I spent nearly 14 hours at track meets this week! One was cold and windy; one was hot and sunburn-y.

The pear trees in our front yard bloomed beautifully.

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.

Spring break at home

We spent spring break at home, doing daily track practices and yardwork. Journal excerpts from the week:

Monday, March 31st: Tired. I ran Coach Winger's track workout with the high school kids today for some reason. It just sort of happened, haha. My previously sore sartorius muscle felt fine! I'm doing the hip PT morning and night. It was chilly and blustery today and I lounged through the late afternoon after taking care of some businesslike phone calls: making appointments, etc.

Rose and Amber played outside for a long time with their neighbor buddy, who lives out of town during school, but came back to Sunnyside for spring break. Jay mowed another section of the lawn. (He mowed the first section on Friday.) Jeff oven cooked ribs for dinner. I got the ribs from Costco as a spring break treat for Jeff and Jay, but I don't really like them. Too stretchy and gristly and fatty for my sensibilities.