XC meet #3

For those of you who don't know, Hannah is on the Cross Country team at school. This girl of mine is built to run. She has long 'ol legs and a stride to die for! I think she is destined to run hurdles if she will get over her fear of leaping! She is fast as a whip and is proving herself in the long distance arena. The problem however is motivation. I missed Hannah's first meet. I was in FL. Her second meet was not so good. The reason being, we had been in AZ for a week. I encouraged her to run daily, but she wouldn't budge. After a few days I gave up. I can't "make" her run. It has to come from her heart. I want it to that's for sure and I know forcing her isn't going to make this happen. We returned from AZ on a Wednesday. She had 2 days to make up for the week lost before her 2nd meet. She didn't eat too great of a dinner and for breakfast not much either. Now, I have had the talk with her about the importance of nutrition and rest as it pertains to sports. I think it goes in one ear and out the other! So meet #2. We drive almost 2 hours to get there. Once her race begins, I don't think she knew what to expect. Her first meet had been a relay and she only ran 1 mile. This race was 2 miles and it was pretty hilly. You can imagine how it turned out. She didn't come in last overall, but she did come in last on her team. She had a time of a little over 21 minutes for the 2 miles. If it was me running, great! a 10 minute mile is about what I do. I don't run for speed though, I just run for the health of it. Hannah however was in a race and speed counts. The following Monday she got into a little trouble during practice. At her school, they hold sports practice during school hours. It is her PE class. She has track 3rd hour. I guess she and another girl from her team were not running the route as they should, instead they were talking too much and came in a minute later than the coach allowed for. Well... not a good thing. Thankfully she has a forgiving coach. The week leading up to this last meet, she took it upon herself to get up a little early and run in the morning before school. She didn't do it everyday, but enough to give herself a boost. We bought her some XC spikes and she worked in them 2 days before her race to get used to them a little. During the day at school, her coach had her run with the sprinters rather than the long distance girls so he could keep an eye on her. Smart man! Saturday morning comes! We had to be at Mississippi State University by 10:30. It's a little over 2 hours away. Jack had his first soccer game at noon and Byron is now gone to Florida. Thanks to my wonderful friend Alison who took Jack and kept him all day, we made it to the meet. Hannah dawned her spikes and prepared for the race. I had encouraged her to shoot for a time of about 17 minutes. I knew she could easily do this and I thought it would be good for her to see she made an improvement over last weeks time. Well...her coach told her to run alongside another girl on her team to keep a good pace. Once again, a smart man! Not only did Hannah run with this teammate, she totally blew her away and kept pace with a much faster teammate. When I saw her come in, I looked at the time clock and was shocked to see it at 15:00. I screamed at her to sprint. She does this anyway. She did and passed the faster girl she had been running with to come in with a time of 15:26!!! I couldn't have been more proud. I really would have been happy to have her come in at 17 minutes. I know she is much more capable, but I didn't want her to put too much pressure on herself, only to be disappointed. In the end, her coach was stunned. Hannah was stunned and so were many of her teammates. They aren't used to seeing her run like that. This is where I say motivation is a problem. That girl has superb potential, but I don't think she believes in herself enough to be motivated. I think after this last race things will be a little different. She saw how a little effort made a huge difference. I am confident that by the time state championships roll around Nov. 5th she will finish out her season on a really good note. Just in time to move to FL and start XC there!