9th Grade:

My freshman year of track didn't go so good. I did well at a few meets, and others i pretty much got smacked.

I remember the first track meet we went to that year, it was at Poca, the Poca Invitational, I was really nervous coming to this. I thought that i was going to do well at this meet because i thought i was a good hurdler.. I dunno what I was thinking *LOL*!! Poca has a 6 lane track, and there were 7 runners, so only one of us wasn't gonna make finals. There were two trial heats, the heat i was in had 3 runners: me, Matt Meeks (on my team, he was also a frosh), and some other guy, no idea who he was. The other heat had 4 guys. When we were at the start line for warm ups, i remember the third runner in our heat coming out of blocks (me and matt had no idea what they were), he sprinted to the hurdle unlike me, and he took 3 steps between the hurdles, I was thinkin' "What the crap? I'm gonna get killed!!" I knew Matt was better than me, this guy was clearly better than me.....Well, So it happens i get beat pretty bad.. I ran a 25.something.. It was terrible! I got used to it though, cuz almost every track meet after that went the same way, me in last place.

About the middle of the season i started learning to 3-step, so my hopes went up that i would do better, maybe even beat someone. Our next meet was the Gazette Relays, me and Matt were in the same heat, I was determined to beat him cuz i had never done so before, well, except when he fell at Winfield, there i got next to last. Anyway, i was so excited about being able to 3-step on hurdles, i couldn't wait for the race to start. Here I am at the start line.."Runners stand by your blocks.".......I didn't use blocks, so i was cool...."Runners on your marks."....Beginning to get really really nervous, couldn't wait for the race to start...."Set".....at this point I'm going to take off flying on the first sound that i hear....*Caugh*...I take off! Motha Humpa I false started cuz i took off when someone caughed! I was so mad! Matt went on to run his best time of the season, a 17.8 or something like that, What i didn't know was he learned how to 3-step also, so he did pretty good. I probably wouldn't have beat him.

After Gazette's we had our home meet at Chapmanville, i knew this would be a fun meet cuz there weren't any good teams there. I believe it was us (logan), scott, sherman, wayne, and hannan. I remember there were one three of us running in the 110m. High Hurdles: Me, Matt Meeks, and some guy from Wayne that we thought was good because he was fast. Well, when we ran, the guy from wayne flew out of his block to get a huge lead on us until the 2nd hurdle, then i passed both he and matt, i ran a great race! Nothing compared to what i run now, but then it was good. I finished the race with the time of 18.1.. Could have been better, but the track is concrete :(. I won the race by 2 hurdles, i looked back after i crossed the finish line, Matt and the dude were battling for 2nd place. Matt hit 8 of the 10 hurdles, so he didn't have a good day.

Later that day we ran the shuttle hurdles, only 2 teams ran, it was us (Me, Matt Meeks, Wayne Nelson, and Neil Ball). We ran against Sherman, we thought we were going to lose because we were watching this 1 guy that sherman had, he was pretty good, and we thought maybe they were all like that. They were all big guys. Well, Matt started the race, had a good leg, nice lead, then i increased the lead, then Neil increased on the lead even more, then Wayne flew! We smoked them! It was the first time we had ever won in shuttle hurdles! We ran a 1:06 on concrete! We were really happy!

Later that day we had the 300m Intermediate Hurdles (My worst event!). Only 3 guys ran, Me, Wayne Nelson, and Matt Meeks. We decided to jog the race and all be beside each other.. WE did that for the first 200 meters, then wayne took off, then matt went. I was left behind, i got 3rd place, wayne smoked us really bad in the last 100! it was hilarious though cuz for the first 200 we ran so slow! He said that our pace was too slow so he took off.

That weekend we had our conference meet, Matt had already quit so i was the only logan high hurdler, i finished last, ran my best time of the year so far, but very far behind all other runners. Then the next week we had Regionals. I ran pretty good, almost made states somehow. I was 7th, but like 3 or 4 10's of a second from being in 4th place (which makes states), it was a close race. I believe my time was 16.6..

Okay that's all i can remember about my freshman year of track, it took me forever to write all of that, I will probably write about my sophomore and junior seasons later..

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