Jonny ran at the Licking County Championships at Watkins Memorial High School in Pataskala. He ran in the 800 Meter Run and the 4×400 Meter Relay.
First up was the 800 Meter Run. He was running against Joe Pappas a teammate he highly respects, but would love to beat and Andrew Jordan, who is one of the top 5 distance runners in the country. This was going to be a good preview of his run to get to the state finals. He came out faster than he normally does and the three boys quickly distanced themselves from the rest of the group. With about 350 meters left Andrew found another gear and was trying to break his school record in his only attempt at running the 800 meter run this year. Jonny and Joe tried to keep pace, but Andrew just kept gaining speed. It turned into a race for 2nd and Jonny overtook Joe with about 200 meters left in the race. He was looking really good until the lactic acid starting settling into his muscles. He cramped up about 40 meters out and Joe overtook him again for 2nd place with about 15 meters left in the race. Jonny wasn’t very happy that he couldn’t finish strong, but he still got a personal best of 1:56.41. If he hadn’t locked up the last 40 meters he could have finished under 1:55! Nikki and I were both happy for him even though he wasn’t. After the race he said he probably didn’t drink enough the last couple of days in preparation for the race and was slightly dehydrated. Seeing him really push himself in this race and seeing what he can accomplish has me excited for the run to the state finals. Unfortunately for him, he is in the toughest division for distance racing. Here are the official results from watkinstrack.org for all the races today. I have some video I took from the first turn below.
The next race was the final race of the evening the 4×400 Meter Relay. Jonny was running the 4th and final leg of the race. Going into the race they were ahead of Licking Valley for 2nd place by only 3 points. So they had to make sure they got as many points as possible. Jonny got the baton and they were in 3rd place behind Watkins and Licking Valley. Close behind Granville was Licking Heights. If Jonny let Licking Heights pass him they were going to lose another 2 points and 2nd place as a team. Jonny held off the kid from Licking Valley and beat him by .12 seconds to make sure Granville took 2nd place overall in the Buckeye Division of the Licking County Championships. The entire 4×400 race can be seen below on the video I took from the start of the first turn.