Today is day 1 of the Wayne Invitational track meet held at Wayne High School in Huber Heights. Jonny is only running in one event today, the distance Medley Relay, which is an 1200 meter, followed by a 400 meter leg then an 800 meter leg and finally a 1600 meter leg.
Jonny was running the 800 meter leg today. The team finished 3rd out of 22 teams with a time of 10:35.37. Jonny’s split for his 800 was 1:58.
Jonny went to the Fulton Relays held at the Lancaster High School this evening. This was another all relay meet like the Elks Relay last week. Jonny ran in the 4×1600 Meter Relay and the Middle Medley Relay.
The first event of the evening was the 4×1600 Meter Relay. Jonny ran the 2nd leg in that relay and got the baton while the team was in 6th place. Even though the team was in 6th place, they were only about 2 and a half second out of first place. Jonny quickly passed a number of kids and went to 2nd place. He and the first place kid distanced themselves from the rest of the group. Jonny ran very well and posted a 4:30.8 in his mile run. The team ran the entire 4 miles in 18:05.92 and placed 2nd in the event against a Watkins team that boasts one of the best 1600 meter runners in the nation. The boys earned Granville 8 points for their effort. The boys also set a school record in the 1600 meter relay by 49 seconds!
His next event was the Middle Medley Relay. In this event the first leg is 800 Meters, the second and third legs are 400 Meters and the final leg is another 800 Meters. Jonny was running the final leg. The team dominated right from the start. By the time Jonny got the baton Granville was comfortably in 1st place. With no one to compete with, he put it in cruise control and finished his 800 Meter leg in a comfortable 2:02. It’s amazing how easy he makes that pace look and doesn’t appear to be laboring at the end of the race. The boys took 10 points in that relay and Jonny helped earn 18 points out of the entire teams 24 points at the meet. They also broke another school record by 20 seconds this time. I hope they give him a chance to run the 800 meter again with some competition to show his true talent and hard work. I did get some video of this race, but the camera was acting up and I didn’t get it started until Joe had already finished about 300 meters of his 800 meters.
Jonny is going to prom this year with Riley Bruck. They were going with a group of kids from the track/cross country team. They all met at the Bryn Du Mansion for pre-prom pictures. From there they went into Easton to the Sakura Japanese Steakhouse. Then they drove back to Bryn Du Field House where the prom was being held.
Jonny and the team travelled to Centerville, south of Dayton, to compete in the Centerville Elk Relays. This is an unusual meet in that almost all the races are relays, with several being medley or steeplechase type relays. Jonny was scheduled to run the Distance Medley Relay and the 4×400 Steeplechase relay.
In the 4000 Meter Distance Medley Relay Jonny ran the first leg of the race which is 1200 meters, the next leg is 400 meters and the 3rd leg is 800 meters, with the final leg of the race being 1600 meters. The boys time of 10:37.14 was less than a second from the winning time and 29 seconds faster than 3rd place out of the 16 teams that participated. Also they broke the school record from the previous year, which Jonny was part of, by 20 seconds! Jonny ran the 1200 meter in 3:13.9.
In the 4×400 Steeplechase relay Granville took 5th out of 15 teams with a time of 4:16.65 and hold a new school record in this event as well. Jonny ran the final leg in 60.3.
It was a very late night as the last race was starting around 10:45 and the kids still had over a two hour bus ride home. Jonny didn’t get home until after 2:00 am. They didn’t eat on the way home like he had hoped and after he ate something, and showered it was almost 3:30 by the time he was heading to bed.
A big thank you goes out to Mr. Pappas for taking some video of Jonny during the 4×400 Steeplechase Relay.
The team was scheduled to compete at the Lexington Invitational last Saturday, April 9th. Due to 3 inches of snow and very cold weather, that meet was cancelled.
This week was another home meet, which meant that after scoring sheets started coming in I didn’t get to watch the meet very much. Also, Jonny has been sick the last couple of days and actually missed over half a day at school yesterday due to a fever and coughing. I did stop long enough to watch Jonny run the 800 meter run, but I missed seeing him in the 4×400 meter relay. The 800 meter run started with a slow pace and Jonny didn’t take the lead until the half way mark. He kept the lead all the way to finish line and won, but with an unusually slow time for him of 2:05.2. But he still was able to secure the 5 points awarded to 1st place even though he was sick.
The video I was able to take of the race is below.
In his second race, the 4×400 meter relay. He was running the final leg of the race, and the team took first place with a time of 3:39.9. By the time Jonny got the baton, the team had built up a huge lead and Jonny cruised his 400 meters with a split of 54.7.
Jonny started his outdoor track season this year in the teams 2nd meet of the season. The team traveled to Zanesville on the 31st for their first meet, but the coaches held some of the varsity runners to give younger runners a chance to show them what they have to offer.
Jonny ran in the 400 meter run and the 4×400 meter relay. In his first race he easily won the race by over two seconds as Granville took first and second place in that race with Thomas easily securing second place. There were 14 racers in the 400 Meter Dash.. Jonny’s time was 52.8
In his 2nd race Jonny ran the final leg. They won the race by almost 7 seconds with the team completing the race in 3:39.9. Jonny finished his split in 53.1
Stephanie was on spring break the week of March 14th and her and Marcus too a trip a Myrtle Beach, SC. They found an economy hotel that was on the beach that still had vacancies. The room was very dated and worn but clean.
They enjoyed the beach as well as some of the local attractions like Barefoot Landing and the Ripley’s Aquarium.
Marcus caught one of the local lizards using a technique he saw on TV. He took a piece a long grass and made a lasso, put it over the lizards head and “roped him!” They both said it worked well and were surprised by their success.
Overall they had a nice short trip from Tuesday until Friday that week. They both looked like they got some sun when they came and visited.
Jonny qualified to participate in three events in the Ohio Indoor Track State Championship held at the University of Akron. The events he qualified for were the 4×800 Meter Relay, the 1600 Meter Run and the 800 Meter Run. All three of those events are run within an hour of each other and Jonny and his coaches thought he could do the best in the 800 Meter Run, so he opted out of the other two races. One of the other 4 relay runners who ran the qualifying run also opted out because he was racing in the 1600 Meter Run 30 minutes after the 4×800 Meter Relay. Other runners got to step into the 4×800 Meter Relay and therefore more team members were able to attend the State Championships.
175 Meters into the race
200 Meters into the Race
Jonny was the 18th and final runner to qualify with a race he had two weeks ago in the Rubber City Meet at the same venue. At that Meet he knew he had to do better to qualify for the State Finals. At that meet he was placed in the slower of two heats when he should have been in the faster first heat. Jonny does better when being pushed by the competition. Anyway he knew this was his only chance at qualifying for the finals and was determined to make it. About half way through that race he was tripped by another runner from behind, but was able to bounce back up and win the race anyway with a time barely good enough to be included in the State Final. We knew he could do better if he had run with racers his own caliber and could stay out of trouble.
450 Meters into the race
Since he was the 18th and final qualifier he had to start on the very outside of the track in the double waterfall start. He was forced to stay to the outside through the first turn, which kept him from getting boxed in. I think that actually worked to his advantage as he could start to make a move whenever he wanted and not worry about having to get to the outside first. He ran a very smart race and was able to keep the leaders in grasp throughout the entire race. He recorded a time of 1:57.01 which was a new personal best for him and took 3rd place in the state finals.
500 Meters into the race
We are very proud of his performance and enjoyed watching him smile from ear-to-ear the rest of the meet.
I took video, but it was from my phone, as in the excitement I left the video camera in the car. Sorry about the blurriness in the video, the video was very shakey and I let youtube smooth it out, but it cause the video to look blurry.
Jonny was invited to run at the Central District Championships held at Otterbein University in Westerville, OH. He was only scheduled for one race the 4×800 relay. We were hoping he was also going to run the 800 meter as he is less than a second from qualifying in that event as well.
The team all ran well in the 4×800 and finished in 8:15.13 which put them in 8th in the state and they only needed to be in the top 16 to qualify. Jonny ran the 4th leg of the race and got the batan while the team was a distant 3rd place. Jonny grinded through the entire race and made up the distance to take over first place at the finish line. He ran his leg in 1:58 which would have put him in the 800 state finals if he ran that time in the 800 as he would have been 6th in the state.
Next week he will be running in the Ohio State Championship at the University of Akron for the 2nd time. I guess we are going to have to reschedule his SAT test for this upcoming Saturday! I have to apologize as there is no video this week.
If Granville was running in Division II, where they compete in all other sports, except Cross Country and Track, today’s performance would have put them in first place in the state by almost 16 seconds in the 4×800. In the 800 Meter Run Jonny would be 4th place in the state and in the 1600 Meter run he would have placed 4th place as well. He could have ran in 3 events at the State Championships! If we would have run the 800 last week in this weeks time, he would have been 1st in the state for Division II.
Looking at an article on MileSplit.com they had the top 25 Juniors for Indoor Track. Jonny was on that list twice, he actually made the top 10 list for the 800 Meter Run and the 1600 Meter Run as he is ranked 9th in the state on both. Congratulations again Jonny.
Jonny running the 800 Meter Run at the University of Akron in the Rubber City Meet
Jonny made the two hour trip to Akron to participate in the Rubber City Meet held at the Stile Athletics Field House. The field house is a large beautiful complex that includes a 300 meter track instead of the normal 200 meter track found at most other field houses.
Jonny ran in two events today. The 800 Meter run and the 4×400 Meter relay. In the 800 meter run he was placed in the 2nd heat. From the start, he got himself positioned on the inside and was about 5th or 6th place at the 200 meter mark. At the 500 meter mark he just moved into 3rd place. The last 200 meters he turned it on and used to his speed to take the lead with about 130 meters to go and continued to use his speed to distance himself from second place. He earned himself a new indoor personal best with a time of 2:00.55 which put him 7th overall out of 79 runners. It would have been interesting to see if he would have broke 2 minutes if he were in the first heat. Here is the video of his heat:
His next race was the 4×400. They were in the 5th heat of that race. Jonny ran the 1st leg and ran a good race and moved himself up into 1st place by a foot or two right at the handoff. Thomas took the baton and and lead and held off 2nd place right at the end of his 400 meters. He gave the baton to Joe and he totally dominated the 3rd leg of the race and distance himself from the rest of the group. Dustin took the final leg and held on to the finish to take first place in their heat and 20th overall out of 32 teams. Not too bad without a single sprinter on the team! Here is the video from their heat:
The last 200 meters he turned it on and used to his speed to take the lead with about 130 meters to go and continued to use his speed to distance himself from second place. He earned himself a new indoor personal best with a time of 2:00.55 which put him 7th overall out of 79 runners. It would have been interesting to see if he would have broke 2 minutes if he were in the first heat. Here is the video of his heat: