James raced in his last state XC race. He prepared hard, ate well for the week or two leading up to the race, drank plenty of water, and got plenty of sleep. He was in tip top shape. Every runner got a porch sign and balloons!
I was so nervous for him for his race. I looked at his results from last year's race and I wanted him to improve his time from last year, move up in places (last year he was 30th place and his time was 16:04). I also wanted him to finish 2nd on his team. To me, those would be wins. He had a great race. He ran his strategy with a slower first mile and then a speedy 2nd and 3rd mile. He ended up in 12th place and his time was 15:32. It was exactly the same course so it was fun to see him improve! Also, he was 2nd on his team too so he checked all of the boxes for me and I was so happy for him. Even better though, he was so happy with his race. A coach from Weber State talked to him after the race so that was a confidence booster!
I didn't not post these pictures in order. You get the idea though. This was before the race started.
The starting line.
The weather was perfect! Not cold but not hot.
Something cool is that James started running cross country in 7th grade. He ran on a team with Miles and Austin. They won the district race that year. James was second on the team back then too. So the picture below is a picture of Miles, Austin, and James in 7th grade. Fast forward to now and the picture above is Miles, James, and Austin.
This is also a picture of them.
How fun that they've run together all of these years. Also, Austin was diagnosed with cancer exactly a year ago during the state XC race. He didn't get to run his whole Junior year because he was so sick. Last year at state, all of the Lehi runners had his number on their arm and dedicated the race to him. Austin completed treatment the rest of his junior year and then was able to recover enough to run through the summer and all the fall races. It was pretty emotional to see him running at state this year.
