Today is the annual partner relay for cross country. It’s a fun event that helps kick off the cross country season. The kids are teamed up with a partner and they run a 1 mile course through infirmary mound park in Granville. They tag their partner’s hand and their partner runs the 1 mile course. They each do this three times, so each person runs 3 miles in the 6 mile race.
After the race the coaches talk about the upcoming season and then there is a cookout with burgers and hotdogs provided by the VanNess family from their farm and the rest of the parents brings side dishes and deserts. It’s also an opportunity for the parents to meet each other.
Jonny’s first day of his senior year at Granville High School today. It’s hard to believe that after this year, Nikki and I won’t have any kids in high school! We are getting old. But I think we are going to enjoy this last year of cross country, indoor track and outdoor track for Jonny. Jonny is pre-season ranked at 72nd in the state of Ohio for all high school cross country runners. In indoor track he is pre-season ranked at 22nd in the nation for the 800 meter run. In outdoor track he is ranked 57th in the nation for the 800 meter run. Last year was a lot of fun watching his success with running and we are looking forward to this year.
Stephanie turned 20 day and is no longer a teenager. We had Stephanie, Marcus, Ashley and Shane over for dinner to celebrate Stephanie’s birthday and Ashley’s engagement as I worked late yesterday and had to work from home after they announced their engagement yesterday.
Marcus took a vacation day and came up to celebrate with Stephanie and then they had dinner with us. Stephanie chose to have Lasagna for dinner.
Shane took Ashley to the Franklin Conservatory Park today, which was the location of their first date. He proposed to Ashley and she accepted! They then had dinner at The Pearl to celebrate together. There are no plans at this time yet, but I am sure Nikki and Ashley will be starting soon.
Today, Thursday, June 16, Stephanie and the group at Stone Lab are heading to Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, which is located on the mainland just over 20 miles west of South Bass Island and Put-in-Bay, or about 30 miles west up the coast from Cedar Point.
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge
Here is the update direct from Stephanie:
“Just went around Ottawa wildlife refuge today and another wildlife refuge bird watching and we saw a family of 7 bald eagles, and then more than 5 trumpeter swans and some of which having baby swans, as well as lots of great blue herons, great egrets, common tern, and lots of other birds .”
Nikki and the kids attended a gathering at the Ohio State University about Stone Laboratory run by OSU and located on Lake Erie. They are the oldest freshwater biological field station established in 1895. At the conference, Stephanie won a scholarship for a summer class. Even with the scholarship the class is pretty expensive for a week long class, but she should be having fun if they have a lot of hands on time. Here is a link to their twitter feed, which has some pictures of the type of things they will do and research.
They are on Gibraltar Island located in the bay across from Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island about 3 miles offshore into Lake Erie.
Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island near Cedar Point
Gibralter Island located in the bay on South Bass Island
Even though the class is only a week long it is a real class that earns real credit at Ohio State University. They are in class all day for 7 days which includes a combination of classroom time and field work. We all know that she is not afraid of getting dirty if it involves nature. Yesterday she was able to release some birds after they caught and banded.
Stephanie helping to band a male Wood Thrush
Staphanie releasing a male Wood Thrush after banding at Stone Lab.
Today they are going to be heading out in boats near the Canadian border to do some more research on North Bass Island. They are heading to Green Island later.
On the boat near Green Island.
Here is what Stephanie told me as she sent the picture above and the one below:
“Just tried to look for more grassland birds, north bass island I think is a state park now, maybe 50 people live on, we just walked around birding, green island we cannot go onto because it is a reserve or something, but it is a main waterfowl nesting site so we are just going to drive the boat around the island to see the nesting birds.”
“I’m not sure what island that is in the background from the boat, maybe sugar island?”
“Because that island you can see a little house on it, green island has no human building or anything on it and it’s quite small, we haven’t gotten to it yet though.”
“There’s so many different islands it’s hard to keep track of the names unless we are going to it!”
Jonny ran in the 800 Meter Run in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Championships today at Jessie Owens Memorial Stadium located on the Ohio State University Campus in Columbus, Ohio. An hour before his race, we had some severe thunderstorms roll through and it delayed the meet by over an hour. When he finally got on the track he ran a 1:56.14, which is only his third best time, but was enough to get him 8th place and a place on the medal stand. He looked like he was about done with about 250 meters left in the race, but he fought back and ended up finishing strong securing 8th place and then holding off two determined challengers. He ended up being the 1st Junior to finish the race. The other 7 in front of him were all seniors. We are excited to see what next years track season has to offer!
Jonny on the medal stand for the 800 Meter Run at the 2016 Ohio High School Track and Field State Championships
Jonny with his medal
State Championship 800 Meter Run Medal
Congratulation to Jonny on his first outdoor Track and Field State Championship berth and a solid performance in District, Regional and State. We are all so proud of you and happy for your accomplishments.
Jonny rebounded from Wednesday’s performance and ran the 800 Meter Run Finals this evening in the Regional Championship Meet held at Pickerington North High School. He ran a new personal best of 1:54.04 and took 4th place which puts him in the State Championships. With 200 meters to go he was in 6th place and took over 5th place with just under 200 meters left. At about 90 meters left in the race he passed another runner for 4th place and finished strong beating the 5th place runner by almost 3/4 of a second. Here are the official results from FinishTiming.com.
Just to show how stacked the district he was in was, all 4 runners who advanced from Jonny’s district also advanced to the State Championship. No other district in the region advanced a single runner.
Jonny participated in the only race of the day that was a finals in the 4×800 Meter Relay. The boys were coming off a good performance of 8:01.46, but were going to need to do better to advance today. Unfortunately they didn’t perform as well today and their time fell to 8:07.35 and finished in 9th place. Jonny ran the 4th and final leg and at that point they were out of being able to finish 4th or higher to advance. Jonny ran around 1:58 which is far from his best time. He did advance the team overall 1 spot. He didn’t finish strong in the final 100 and knew he was not going to make the 2 seconds they were down and gave up “racing” which allowed the team behind them to catch him in the final three meters of the race and pass him for the 8th and final medal spot at the Regional Championship. Official results can be found on the FinishTiming.com website here.
Jonny’s only race today was the 800 Meter Run Finals as he qualified earlier in the week to make it to the finals.
He needed to get 4th place or better to advance to the regionals while being in the district that was loaded with talent when compared to the rest of the districts. Six athletes had already run under 1:57 in his district. Most other districts only have 1 person that has run under 1:57 and some districts the fastest person had yet to break sub 1:59.
Jonny ran a smart race and did what he needed to advance by taking 3rd place with a new person best of 1:54.461. He shaved off almost 2 seconds from his previous best and had a very strong finish. He has now recorded the 6th fastest 800 Meter Race recorded in the state this year. Here are the official race results from timerhub.com.
