And Then There Were Two

This season has been a roller coaster.  We've had some great highs and some really low lows.  Injuries, illnesses, accidents, and other bad luck plagued us throughout the season, but we still had some great performances throughout. The 2017 Sac-Joaquin Section meet was a condensed version of the entire season with some really good performances and some really heartbreaking finishes.

Varsity Girls Race
Despite all of the obstacles this team faced during the season, I was still confident going in that even an 85% effort from some of our gimpy girls would still result in a top 2 finish and 3rd straight berth in the state championships.  This was not to be.

Jessie and Kinsey 1/2 mile in

Jessie had been nursing a hip flexor strain the entire season (unbeknownst to me until after TVL
finals).  The pain had been gradually been getting worse since her tremendous performance at the Lowell Invitational in September.  After league, Jessie had a week of almost complete rest to try and get the hip flexor ready to run on Saturday.  The muscle held up for the first mile then started hurting, then started hurting worse, then started causing the muscles around it to spasm.  Jessie gamely pressed on, but ended up finishing over 3 minutes behind where she would have finished uninjured. 

While Jessie was struggling, Kinsey was showing emerging fitness after missing much of October with pneumonia.  Kinsey went out easy at the section meet and gradually worked her way through the field to finish a very respectable 19th.  It was that performance that kept us in the hunt points wise.  Despite the time being slowish by Kinsey's standards, it was a great race for her, considering that less than 3 weeks ago she was just getting back to running for the first time since early October.

Esme's Knee Showing Evidence Of Her Fall

Kinsey's good race was offset a bit by the fact that Esme fell just after the recall point at the start of the race.  With blood coming from elbow and both knees, she had to get back up and sprint through the entire 150 runner field to try and catch back up to her teammates.  She did catch them, but the effort took out a little more energy than she should have spent early in the race.  She and her teammates ran together in the top 15 for the first mile, but when Ellie and Emily accelerated to chase the top 10, Esme was already too tired to follow.  She ran strong to hold onto 15th place and keep us in the hunt for the 2nd berth to state.

Emily and Ellie With A Mile To Go

Up front for us in the race, Emily and Ellizette were having very good races.  Emily was our early season team leader, but posterior tibial tendinitis slowed her down for the last 2 weeks of October.  The injury actually prevented her from running at TVL finals and kept her on the bike and elliptical for over 2 weeks.  Her race the week before at subs was the first hard running effort she had done since supercross on October 14th. Elizette is the only one of our top 5 who has had no illness or injury issues this year.  Her ability to stay healthy is the main reason she moved into the role of our #1 runner at TVL finals and has stayed there ever since.  Both girls ran tough determined races to finish in the top 10 and earn individual berth's to the state meet.  Both have an opportunity to finish their seasons with PR efforts in Fresno 2 weeks from now. 

Camille with 400 to go!

Jasmine 1/2 mile in

With our normal top 5 at well less than 100%, the question was, "can one of our rookies pick up the slack".  About half way into the race, Jasmine began having asthma issues that have been bothering her for about a year now.  Camille on the other hand ran a tremendous last mile, picking up over 20 places and keeping hopes alive that we could get into the chute with fewer points than El Dorado.  In the end, it just wasn't quite enough.  El Dorado's 74 points narrowly beat our 81.  

Congrats to the Cougars on a great race as well as to the Placer Hillmen.  Go down to state and get a berth back for our section!  That way 2 of you guys can go with us to state next year!