Tales From The Ocean

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.

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.