July summer fun

Summer is cruising by. Lots of fun with the kids between band camp, cross country, track, basketball, sports camps, and more. 

I ran a few trail races up in the mountains. Right before the first race, they sent us a warning about an aggressive bear sighting in the area (i.e., on the trail we were to be running). Like a Utahn, I went in the garage and found our bear spray to bring just in case. That did not stop the race and thankfully there were no bear sightings. Though the race was painful. 1200 feet elevation gain over a mile. 

Park basketball

Swimming and sunning and popsicles 

Cross Country champs

Kyle and Emily ran in the district championships and made their mark. Both have had excellent seasons and their team has been consistently awesome. Emily finished 23rd for JV girls in the district. Kyle finished 10th in the district for varsity boys. Both of their teams were the 1st place teams. Way to go!

Cross Country

Third race of the season and kids still running strong. Kyle back on varsity with his stitches out. Emily constantly improving her time and running hard. This race she FLEW at the end, passing several runners on her way in. 

Cross Country - take 2

Cross country race #2 went decidedly better than the first for Kyle. Still with his stitches in, he raced. This time in the JV race to get his legs back under him. He managed to win the race. And with stopping to take his spikes off for a portion of the race where there was too much cement. Crazy.

Emily ran a great race as well, working her way through the course and improving her time.

That night, Kyle was able to get his stitches out. The ER doc remembered him from his avocado thumb stitches from May and gave us a kit to take them out at home at the proper time. Kyle was thrilled to take them out and it was much easier than the thumb stitches. 

Cross Country Season

Cross country season kicked off in September for Kyle and Emily. 

Emily kicked her season off with a great race, finishing in the top 1/3 of JV girls. 

Kyle's first race didn't go so well. Running varsity and wearing XC spikes for the first time... Within the first 100 yards when the course narrowed to a turn, Kyle was taken down by some spikes and couldn't finish. I tried my darnedest to avoid taking him in for stitches, but no amount of bathroom doctoring could hold his wound together. Ended up with 7 stitches (numbing wore off so final 2 were skipped). Oh and this was all on Jeff's birthday. Happy birthday to Jeff. We ended up at ramen dinner at 9pm post ER. 

Track season

Track season kicked off in June and the kids are off to a great start. Kyle and Emily are both running the mile and doing shot-put. Kyle also does the long jump and Emily high jump. Aaron is running the 50 yard dash and doing shot-put. 

Cross Country fall finale

Kyle and Emily finished off the fall season of cross country. They both enjoyed the season, the sport, and their team very much. They worked really hard and ran to their heart's content. Both talk of running more in the spring and with cross country next fall. 

Emily and her teammate running together

Kyle after he got trampled at the start. It's hard being an elementary age kid running with middle schoolers who are much bigger than you. Kyle learned that even when you get trampled, you get up again and start running. And that they aren't going to start the race over because you got trampled. 

Kyle, Emily, and a few of their young teammates (ones in elementary school) ran a JO race together / appropriate age / gender divisions after the team season was over. It was a fun experience for the kids to actually run against kids their own age and see where they stack up. Both ran hard, had fun, and did well. 

Al Buehler Trail

When Jeff ran at Duke, he ran on this trail many a times. This was before the trail was formally named and groomed as the Al Buehler trail (I think). Coach Al was Jeff's coach at that time. This weekend, Jeff took us on it for a nice little family run. 

More Cross Country Meets

Kyle and Emily have had several more cross country meets. They are both running very well and pushing themselves. Races are most often a 3k (1.8 miles) though some have been a little longer. And their team has done great! At a very large meet, the boys team took 3rd against other area middle school teams (and a good handful of the boys on the team aren't in middle school yet).