Ultimook Challenge

My first week as assistant cross country coach is done. I have learned a few kids' names, blown a whistle several times, and driven a massive school van for at least 10 hours. But I still feel very unsettled when I go to practice. I am a total stress case when it comes to change, especially when that change thrusts me into a social situation. That on top of the massive ongoing adjustment to the new school plus cross country schedule has left me feeling rather overwhelmed for 90% of each day. In fact, I have been so wrapped up in My Own Life that I have been less aware of what those around me are going through. Everyone is going through something, good or bad, big or small. I have simply had transition-blinders on and not paid attention.

For example, when a friend asked me how I'm doing with coaching, I babbled on about adapting to my new schedule and my inability to converse with teenagers--all legitimate concerns for me right now. Those passing hallway conversations rarely leave enough time for both parties to share. Ending a conversation where I was the only contributor leaves me feeling hollow, unfinished, and selfish. Asking "how are you," listening to the response, and then sharing news in return is the most whole, finished type of conversation.

One friend from church birthed her fifth baby two weeks ago, and she was standing there asking ME how I'M doing on Sunday. Another friend was stressed for several real-life reasons that I didn't know details about till days later, and she patiently listened to my hand-wringing monologue on how intimidating teenagers are to me. Then, later Sunday night, that same friend BROUGHT US COOKIES.

During my scripture study yesterday, I had one of those non-epiphany-epiphanies, the kind that was so obvious I should have seen it sooner. The scriptures say "behold the man" (aka put Jesus Christ in the center of your life) and I read an excellent talk about what that means. I have been trying to work out what ministering  (aka serving, supporting, listening, etc.) to others looks like for me in my current situation, especially since I am terrible at baking cookies. As I sat pondering how can I more fully "behold the man," the spirit linked the two desires together and this distinct thought came to me: ministering to others is the best way to truly behold the man.

I resolved to make a more conscious effort to be there for those around me, whether it's asking how their life is going, bringing them a food item that I do know how to make, sending a kind text, etc. In other words, do what Jesus would do! Duh, Shaina! As absorbing and new as my schedule is right now, I don't want to be too wrapped up in my own life to acknowledge and fellowship others!

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, here's the story of our weekend adventure at the first cross country meet of the season. 

The Ultimook Cross Country Challenge was such a fun meet. As a first meet it looked very overwhelming on paper: drive a 15 passenger van full of high schoolers 4.5 hours to Tillamook, Oregon (west of Portland), camp overnight with them, run a rugged 3 mile race with a massive mud pit and two river crossings in the morning, then watch them run the same course, try to match the right names to the right faces while cheering on the team, load up the vans again, and repeat that 4.5 hour drive, all with my own 3 small children in tow. Thank heavens Jeff is an old hand at this. He took it all in his stride and the entire trip went butter-smooth, minus our wild Amber-child, but we knew what she was when we brought her along, haha.

THE VAN. When Jeff and I picked the two school vans up on Friday morning, I took mine for a spin around the country roads to get a feel for it and soothe my anxiety. Thankfully it was not nearly as hard to drive as I feared. Though it was a 15 passenger sized van, it only had 2 benches inside, with the remaining space being used for cargo (camping gear!)

The coaches, ready to embark on our first meet together!

I picked Jay and Rose up early from school on Friday, August 31st so we could hit the road in time. This seating arrangement only lasted about 15 minutes. Then Amber started attacking Rose and Jay moved to the front seat by me while Rose scooted down the bench away from Amber. We only ended up having 2 high schoolers in our van, two girls who were sweet and patient with the rowdy Amber. Two no-shows and a cancellation reduced our numbers to 8 athletes, 2 coaches, and 3 elementary kids. Sadly the van did not have an old-fashioned CD player, so we couldn't listen to our Harry Potter book 5 discs on the drive. That's the main reason Amber was so unruly.

After suffering through rush hour in Portland and another 90 minutes on a curvy little road after that, we arrived at Hydrangea Ranch at last! The scenery was worth the drive.

Mischief in every bone of her body.

The kids and I took a shake-out walk while Jeff took the team on a shake-out run. We convened for dinner at the pavilion.

Lasagna dinner! Rose and Amber were there too. A word about pictures: I try not to share too many pictures of other people's kids online, because it doesn't feel like my place. If I am in the picture with them, it feels more ok. But coaching with Jeff basically feels like our family of 5 has grown to a family of 40 with all of the xc runners, and I automatically take pictures of my family! But I shall resist posting too many.

We camped in a thick grassy field full of other teams. It was the spongiest turf I've ever slept on. Kind of lumpy too, but definitely spongy. Girl power note: the 2 girls set up their 2 tents much faster than the 6 boys set up their one tent.

Amber loved playing in the cargo area of the vans.

I endured a long hour or so of wild children in the tent while Jeff was out being sociable with parents and other passersby (my choice was deliberate, but it was still rough in there).

Eventually I resorted to putting Amber in a burrito to stop her punching-kicking-flailing attacks on her siblings. It only lasted about 20 seconds. Eventually I escaped the tent and told Jeff I needed to go on a walk by myself to find my center again. He went into the tent and handled the situation while I was gone.

I visited the Kilchis River, which the cross country course crossed twice. When I returned to the tent, Rose and Amber were watching Frozen on Jeff's phone and Jay was reading quietly.

Sleeping bag reading. At dusk, Jeff took the team over to the pavilion (at least a quarter mile away) to watch a movie (McFarland USA--highly recommend). Eventually we turned off the movie and our kids went to sleep and I laid there wishing I could do something, but feeling too cozy in my sleeping bag to want to brave the cooling temperatures...until I heard a kid walking past our tent say "look at those stars!"

I jumped out of my warm sleeping bag and left the tent to admire the sky. WORTH IT. I saw the Milky Way, dusted in a long stream through the bright gorgeous stars (it didn't show up in pictures of course). I have been dreaming of stars like this for years, but we have had zero luck stargazing, in spite of our many camping trips. Photo note: When I took this picture on my little camera, it looked pure black on the screen with one tiny speck of light. I put the image through the aptly named Adobe Lightroom, cranked up the exposure 500%, and these beauties appeared. It was MUCH better in person though, as is Mother Nature's way.

While admiring the stars, I ambled over to the pavilion and watched the last third of the movie, (McFarland USA), while shivering on a bench next to Jeff. Watching a movie about runners with a crowd of runners is so much fun--it was a great group that laughed in all the right places.

SUNRISE over Hydrangea Ranch.

Early morning slow walkers, in search of the port-a-potties and clutching the baggies of cereal I packed them.

It was in the low 50s when I was getting ready to run the community open race at 8am. Brrrr. It was wonderful running weather, just hard to strip out of my warmups before the race.

Jeff put Rose on his shoulders and handed her the camera while I traversed the mud pit, and she got artistic and took a picture of Jeff's phone taking a picture of me. That's our Rose.

When I hit the mud, I bogged down immediately and nearly tipped right over with every step. That's me in the middle of it, wearing blue. Seriously though, that mud pit was intense! It was knee deep and ultra squelchy, with a foot or so of soupy thin mud on top of the suctiony stuff. I've never done anything like it, unless you count my childhood running wild in the woods of west Tennessee...

I survived the mud pit with both shoes intact! The meet rules specifically stated that if you lost a shoe in the mud pit, you could not continue until you had retrieved your shoe.

Cruising after the river crossings--my feet were so mud and waterlogged, they felt like cement bricks!

The finish. This was such a satisfying outdoor challenge of a race. I liked that the challenges were runner-friendly (although I walked through the mud and both river crossings to preserve my various limbs).

Victory! My time was 24:46, which was a solid effort on this slow boggy course. And that is blood on my knee--my feet were so clunky with mud that I stumbled and fell on the trail right before the first river crossing. The river crossings were about knee deep in the middle, so most of my mud washed off.

These girls both fell in the mud pit during their race. It was seriously the best entertainment, clustering around the mud pit and watching the various runners slip, slide, fall, swim, and belly flop through it.

Cross country meet vibes.

Tired Amby.

I don't know if anyone we know is in this picture; I just took it to illustrate the madness of the mud pit during the high school races. It was such a fun crowd to be in, with universal gasps, laughs, and exclamations as the runners struggled through the mud.

Rose and her friend Evie crawled through the legs of spectators to peek out at the mud pit action.

I couldn't get enough of that view!

Triumphant team. (Jeff did not run the race due to a slowly healing ankle issue.)

Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Jay and his friend Jordy found a tiny frog and spent most of the day playing with it.

The little girls, playing to pass the time.

For some reason the kids took turns putting the tiny frog on each others' heads.

Rose was a little uncertain.

We had lunch from the little food trailer that catered affordable concessions for the meet.

The drive home was LENGTHY (Jeff and I couldn't trade off driving when we got sleepy because we had two different vans). Our van rocked out to The Greatest Showman soundtrack, then we turned Roald Dahl's Matilda on audiobook (I still had it saved on my phone from the last time we listened to it) and listened to the entire book, finishing a few minutes after we arrived back in Sunnyside. We hit Portland traffic for the second day in a row and didn't get back to the high school until 9pm. But outside Goldendale the lingering sunset was glorious with Mt. Adams next door. We also drove right past a burning hillside--a wildfire had started in the 24 hours since we last drove up highway 97! It looked eerie, smoking and glowing in the dark like a massive sleeping dragon.