district and state x-country meets

Sebastian's cross country season ended on Sunday -- it was a terrific experience, and he made us proud with his effort and grit during this first foray into competitive running. He qualified to compete in the top class for both the district (all-Portland) and state-wide cross country meets. The district meet was last Monday; Seb was really nervous about the competition, and probably didn't eat as much ahead of time as he should have. He ran hard and said afterward that he pushed himself and felt like he was running as fast as he ever had. His time was great - 11:29 - not a personal best, but good enough to finish in 17th place out of 74 runners. Results here: https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/164399/results/678530

The state championship cross-country meet was this Sunday afternoon, on the grounds of Western Oregon University near Salem. It turned out to be an unexpectedly warm day and Seb once again was feeling some nerves ahead of time. Plus, he'd had a soccer game on Saturday afternoon and a super-active birthday party at a parkour gym on Saturday night. So he was probably not at his best! But he still did really well and ran his heart (and stomach) to their max. It was a really cool experience to see kids from all over Oregon coming together to run, and I'm glad we got to see it -- I expect he'll be back next year, a wizened veteran ready to run.

Seb's time was 11:47; he finished 97th out of 307 runners in the Super Champs category (there were about 200 other boys in the Champs and Mini Champs categories). The winner finished in 10:01, which was pretty spectacular. Results were posted here: https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/156141/results/651028

Since we had driven over an hour to get to the race, and it was such a gorgeous day, we went to a really scenic, enormous riverfront park in Salem after the meet. There was an off-leash dog area; there were running trails weaving through forests and along the Willamette River. The kids supervised Jasper's romping while Steve and I got in a 3-mile run together, which felt terrific. Mom and Dad Raab also walked around and then we all had a lovely lupper together in Salem before hopping back onto the road home. Sebastian actually had baseball tryouts for a select team on Sunday night, so he and I drove straight there and he quickly changed from runner into baseball player. Quite a day.