Category Archives: Track and Field

Jonny ran in the 800 meter run at the Rod Russel Invitational held at Mason High School just north of Cincinnati. He didn’t run until around 10:00 pm and didn’t make it home until around 2:00 and had to get up early Saturday to take the SAT in New Albany. Nikki and I did not make it to the meet as both our parents were in town for Ashley’s Graduation from Ohio State.

Jonny was told by the started that he was not allowed to leave his lane until after the first turn. He was put on the outside of the lane as well. He let the other kid in his lane get a better start and then the kid just settled back to the back of the pack and Jonny couldn’t get around him without stepping out the lane, which he was told he couldn’t do. After 200 meters he was already 30 meters behind the leaders and was finally able to get around the guy in his lane. He ran the next 600 meters hard to get back into 2nd place where he finished .7 seconds behind the leader. He ran the race in 1:58.77.  Official Results can be found at Finish Timing.

After the race the coach told him he could have stepped into the outside lane and passed the slower runner to give himself a better position.  I guess he can chalk this race up to a learning experience.  He also needs to learn that he is one of the premier racers in the state, yet most of his starts show no urgency to be near the front of the pack at 50-100 meters into the race.  I think if he decided to set the pace of the race from the beginning he could beat his personal best by 2 seconds or more, but he doesn’t like to dictate a race from start to finish.

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.

Official Results can be found on Finish Timing here.

I did take video of the race and here it is.

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 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

The Central District Meet is held at Hilliard Darby High School.  The first day is dedicated to field events and Jonny did not participate in the first day.  The second day of the event the preliminaries are run.  Jonny was scheduled to run the 4×800 Meter Relay, which is one of the few finals that were run.  He was also scheduled to run the 800 Meter Run preliminary where he needed to be one of the top 8 in his heat to make it to the finals on Saturday.  The last race he ran was the 4×400 Meter Relay preliminary.  The top 8 times in the 4×400 prelims will run in the finals on Saturday as well.

In the 4×800 finals the boys finished in 8:09.15 and were edged out for the 4th place finish.  Jonny ran the 2nd leg in 2:01.1.

The 800 Meter Run Preliminaries, Jonny ran a very conservative 2:06.94, his slowest 800 time of the season.  He still ended up winning the preliminary heat he was in and advanced on the to finals for Saturday.

The 4×400 Relay Preliminaries were the final event of the evening.  The boys finished the race 3rd in their heat with a time of 3:32.36 which was 5th overall and qualified them for the finals on Saturday.  Jonny ran the final leg in 55.2 seconds and looked tired from the previous two races as he was passed and by one runner and never recovered and come in a distant 3rd, which is very unusual for Jonny as he is normally very competitive.

Jonny ran in the 800 Meter Run and the 4×400 Relay Finals today.

In the 800 meter run, Jonny got out to an early lead for the first 350 meters.  At that point he was passed and allowed the other runner to get out too far in front to catch.  Jonny said he was surprised the other runner took the lead and kept his faster pace at that time.  By the time Jonny kicked he couldn’t catch him.  Jonny got his 2nd best time with a time of 2:01.14

Jonny ran in the Licking County League (LCL) Championships on Tuesday.  He only ran two events, the first event the 4×800 relay and the last event the 4×400 relay.  The 4×800 relay was a final and the 4×400 was a preliminary to decide who races in the final held on Friday

Jonny ran the second leg of the race in 2:02.5.  He got the baton with the team in 4th place.  After the first 400 meters the top 4 teams were all together.  The 2nd lap, Jonny took control and got the team in the lead and by the time he handed the baton off, his lead was about 20 meters.  The team ended up taking 2nd place with a time of 8:12.11.  Here is the video of the race.

The team participated at the Larkin Invitational for the first time.  They have wanted to get into this meet as the competition is very good.  The meet is held at Upper Arlington High School in Upper Arlington, OH.   This is the same venue where they had their first meet of the season as a tri meet which included Hilliard Darby.  Jonny was scheduled to participate in the 1600 meter run and the 4×400 relay.  The team finally received their new uniforms, you will notice, in the videos below, the boys team now has dark tops instead of the white tops they had before.

In the 1600 Meter run Jonny Jonny completed the 4 laps with a Personal Best time of 4:33.35.  He finished in 7th place overall out of 21 runners participating in the race.   This was the first time this season he has run the 1600 Meter Run.  He did participate in the 4×1600 Meter Relay at the Fulton Relay Invitational held in Lancaster on April 24th.

The 4×400 Relay the boys were placed in the slower heat.  They all ran very well and secured a Season Best time of 3:32.89 for any 4×400 run during the 2015 track season.  Jonny ran the 4th leg of the race and tucked in behind the leader of the heat until about the 200 meter mark and then he made his move and finished very strong and easily won by 35 meters.  They ended up 4th overall out of the 9 teams participating.