The Star of the North Games

Running hard

The Minnesota Star of the North State Games were this past weekend. Overall it was a very fun meet for me and the kids. My son came home with five medals so he was very excited. It was a little tough on my daughter because she was the youngest one there, but she ran hard and told me that she did her best. That's all you can hope for. As another Beachbody Coach, Traci Morrow recently said, "You don't have to be the best. You just have to be your best."

For the third year in a row they listed me as being 20 years older than I am. Normally it is a pain because they put the heats together ahead of time and it's hard to get put back in with the younger group. I will often try to run with the college and high school kids if I have the option. This year they organized the heats at the meet so we had the ability to combine the age groups. I forgot to correct them this year when I picked up my medals so I'm hoping I didn't take someone else's gold medals away.

200 meters

My primary focus is on the 400 meters, but I also wanted to post a good time in the 200. I had a goal of getting under 24 seconds which I thought was reasonable since I ran a 24.04 indoor and indoor times are typically slower than outdoor. I also don't think I have run under 24 seconds since I was in my 20's. The 200 was a pretty competitive race as well with a combination of high school, college, and young masters runners in my heat. I ended up just getting edged out by one of the younger guys. I got to talking with him after the meet and found out he is a college student at UW-L who is an assistant coach for our school's high school track program. Small world.

200 meter finish

So my goal was to get under 24 seconds in the 200 meters. My time - 24.00. I can't be too disappointed, but  I was so close. That's when you really start over-analyzing the race. If I had only leaned a little earlier...or come out of the blocks a little faster...or pushed a little harder around the corner. I guess it gives me something to shoot for at the National Championships in August.

My 400 was pretty uneventful. I was mainly running out by myself so I really just had to focus on what I was doing because there wasn't anyone else there to push me. It's at times like this that practice, discipline, and relaxation all come into play. I ended up running 53.30 which I was happy with. I know I will need to get under 53 at the National Championships in order to place in the top three so I've got a little work to do over the next month.

4 x 400 relay

The best thing about the meet was being able to watch my kids run. My son has really improved on his racing and takes it seriously. My daughter also ran very hard. They both ran the 100 and 200 meters, and my son ran the 400 meters, 4x100, and 4x400 relays with some other kids. Probably my proudest moment was after the meet when my son said that he would like to start training for long distances. I said he can do that if he wants and we can get into some 5k races. He said he means the 400 meters. He wants to train for it so he can get better. Nearly brought a tear to this old man's eyes.

All done