Adventures Of My Life
Jonny ran in the first Day of the Licking County League Championship today in the only track final of the day, the 4×800 Meter Relay. He was the final leg of the 4×800 Meter Relay. The team easily won with a time of 8:06.24. By the time Jonny got the baton for the final leg, the team was way out in front.
Here is the video that I took from the race.
Jonny also runs in the 800 Meter Run and the 4×400 Meter Relay on Friday which is Day 2 of the LCL Championship.
Jonny ran at the Larkin Invitational held at Upper Arlington High School. The weather was terrible with drizzle and rain. The temps were in the upper 40’s and it was very windy as well.
Jonny was scheduled to run in the 800 Meter Run and the 4×400 Meter Relay. His first race wasn’t until 9:15 and the 4×400 was scheduled to be around 10:20. This was the first time he was going to run the 800 since the indoor State Championships. He didn’t get a great start in the large field of 22 runners. By the 300 meter mark he was in 5th place and by the 400 meter mark he moved up to 3rd. At the 500 meter mark he started to slowly advance the pace. Just before the 600 meter he was already in 2nd place. Just under 100 meters left he overtook 1st place and none else was matching his speed. He was 1.68 seconds ahead of his nearest competition. He finished 1:57.62 which was good enough for 1st place in the meet and 13th overall in the state at this point.
Here is the video I took from the race.
Jonny ran the 2nd leg in the 4×400 Meter Relay. The rain and wind really picked up and I didn’t get any video. He got the baton with the team in last place, well behind 1st and 2nd, but with the rest of the group. Jonny was in 3rd place by the first 100 meters in his leg of the race. By the 300 meter mark of his leg, he overtook 2nd place and when he handed off the baton he was in first place by about a half step. The team ended up in 2nd place with a time of 3:37.04
Jonny ran in the Distance Medley Relay again this week at the Fulton Relays held at Fulton Field at Lancaster High School. Today he ran in the 800 Meter Run which again he just ran a solid race with no kick at the end and moved the team up from a distant 4th place to 2nd place with his 800 meter time of 1:59.
The team ended up in 4th place with a time of 11:03.03.
Jonny ran in the Distance Medley Relay and started the first leg of the race which is 1200 meters. He ran smart today and did not kick in the end as that is when he is re-injuring his hamstring. He ran the 1200 meters in 3:13.4 and helped setup the relay team for their 3rd place finish with a team time of 10:42.5. The Distance Medley Relay is 1200-400-800-1600 meter relay segments.
Jonny ran in the 1600 meter run at the Lexington Invitational held at Lexington High School in Lexington, Ohio. He ran a good race and kept up with one of the premier 1600 runners in the state for 1200 meters before his nagging hamstring injury started to bother him again. He was still able to take 4th place and get a new person best time of 4:30.24.
Jonny’s first meet of the indoor track season was run today at the French Field House in Columbus, Ohio. He was only scheduled in one race today, the 4×800 relay. His team raced to a 3rd place finish out of twenty teams with a time of 8:42.54. Jonny ran the 3rd leg and his split was 2:05. He got off to a leisurely start, but picked up his pace after the first 400 meters and finished strong. After the race he said he felt like he could have given a lot more. Hopefully he got the rust knocked off and will be able to really compete next week and get qualified for the state meet.
Official results can be found here at Finish Timing. Or you can find the results on the Granville Track and Field Reporting Tool.
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.
Below is the video of the race
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.
Jonny was entered in the 800 meter run and the 4×800 meter relay in the district championships. The 4×800 relay the team needed to be in the top 4 to move on to the Regional Championships, which will be held next week. In the 800 meter run, the top 8 runners from each heat of 14 were going to move on to the finals which are going to be held this coming Saturday.
The first event event of the day was the only final event run for the day. The 4×800 relay. The boys did what was required of them to make it into the Regional Finals by easily taking 4th place, with a time of 8:01.46. Official Results can be found on Timerhub.com.
The 800 Meter run was very unusual as the pace was extremely slow. This led to being a 200 meter race for the top 8 spots. With 200 meters left to go, Jonny was in the 8th spot, but stuck on the inside and 3 or 4 kids barely behind him. He worked to the outside and ran hard the last part of the race and secured 2nd place in the heat with his worst time of the season of 2:05.49. If you weren’t a good sprinter you could have missed out on making it to the finals, by not setting a faster pace and eliminating the slower runners from contention. The 2nd heat ran only a second faster, but the top 8 runners separated themselves from the rest of the group and there wasn’t a mad dash for the 8th spot in that race. The official results are on Timerhub.com again.
In the 800 Meter Run Jonny is in the only division with more than 1 person that can run 1:57 or slower. His division has 6 runners that have all run 1:57 or better this season, including Jonny. There are only 4 people that are moving on, so Jonny is going to have to run one of his better races to make it out. In some of the other divisions there is only 1 runner who has run under 2:00 this season. And a couple divisions where someone who will probably run 2:03 or worse and still make it to regionals. Jonny’s division is stacked with 6 runners that if they were split into other divisions and regions, would all make it to the state finals, but 2 of them are not even going to make it out of districts.
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.