Five Girls and their Guy: Sarah's Senior Track Season

Sarah's Senior track season was incredible. She worked so hard in the off-season...running trails in the snow and rain and wind, lifting, strengthening her body, choosing food wisely, all in the hopes of having a better Senior track season than she did her Junior year. While her ultimate goal of placing higher at state was not achieved, she did reach many milestones and her hard work obviously paid off!

She beat the school record in both the 1600m and the 3200m...and not by just a little either! She crushed those records! The previous record in the 1600m was a 5:20...she ran a 5:15 and then at a later meet ran a 5:09! The previous record in the 3200m was an 11:23 and she ran an 11:14! Both records were held by one of her best running buddies, and yes, they are still buddies and are excited to run on the XC and track teams at Calvin together next year!

Other accomplishments included several first places, first at District in the 1600m and 3200m, winning the Northwest Conference Championships in the 3200m, taking 2nd in the 1600m at a HUGE invite with big schools in Seattle (that's where she PR'ed with a 5:09), *almost* breaking the school record in the 800m, and taking 5th and 6th places at state in the 3200m and 1600m.

This year the state meet was SUPER FAST...she got 5th in the 3200m with an 11:20. For perspective, 2 years ago she placed 4th with an 11:47. 11:47 didn't even make it on the podium this year. It was disappointing, for sure, to not end as well as she hoped. Her coach took much of the blame himself, when really, it was simply a matter of circumstances that affected her state races. Regardless of how state went, she had an awesome season and has much to be proud of and thankful for. We couldn't be prouder of how she has persevered through the ups and downs of her running career thus far and all of the character qualities she has begun to develop and fine-tune through this work, accomplishments, disappointments, and teamwork.

And now for a barrage of pictures!

These are from the meet at Civic where she broke the 3200m record (the 1600m record was previous to this and that picture was shared in an earlier post).

These were at a big Invite with huge schools where she broke the school record in the 1600m again and ran really well in the 800m.

The team captured third place overall!

Christian School Invite - this is where Sarah started running the 4x400 relay pretty consistently. She improved almost every time she ran it and became a solid and confident relay team member.

The following pictures are from the Northwest Conference Championships...it sounds like a big deal, and it is, but it means nothing as far as advancing to state or anything like that. It's all the county schools, regardless of size, that compete in a meet that is all about fun, competition, Whatcom County, and sportsmanship. We have always enjoyed the NWC championships in both XC and track - great event put on by great people at a great school in Bellingham.

Sarah & a couple distance buddies before the 3200m.

During the 3200m, this girl was right behind Sarah, basically the whole time, matching her strides, step for step. For EIGHT laps. Can I just say, that the 3200m is NOT my favorite race? It's TOO LONG AND STRESSFUL!!!

Finally, Sarah started to pull away. Whew. Sigh. Of. Relief.

And she won! I don't know if that's from the 7th or 8th lap, but it was a pretty close race, and I was cheering and hiding my eyes some of the time...

I love how her teammate who placed 3rd is looking up at Sarah and smiling. :) Team is family.

Sarah got to run the relay again and they placed second!

The following pictures are all from the District meet. At this point, Sarah had to give up her goal of breaking the 800m record, in order to focus on the 1600m & the 3200m. It was her choice and a hard decision, but the right one.

The picture below is Sarah with a girl from another county school that she has competed against for several years and they have gotten to be friends and we have gotten to know her parents as well. Such a wonderful and sweet family. It will be sad to not watch Amy Jo run anymore or to be able to cheer her on alongside Sarah!