Welcome back to my blog. I hope everyone enjoyed their first race of the season as much as I did. I couldn’t have asked for a better start of the season from my team. As for the other teams around the state, I saw some impressive performances over the weekend and congratulations to ALL who competed.
Niceville and several other Panhandle schools kicked off their season at the Pace Patriot Invitational in Pensacola. The course was three loops around a field with hard packed dirt each about a mile long. Along with the north Florida schools competing, the race played host to a few out of state teams, T.R. Miller and Fairhope from Alabama. The boys’ team was warming up so I didn’t get to see much of the girls’ race, but the overall winner of the race was Karisa Nelson of T.R. Miller. Her younger sister Katie Nelson came in 2nd about 17 seconds back. Following those two, came sophomore Emma Rudman. Emma led her team, Ft. Walton Beach, to the team title with 51 points. This was 16 points up on a VERY impressive Pace team led by the Kling sisters and Cheyenne Andrew. Niceville had a good pack after the top two taking 3rd in the team standings.
The guy’s race started at 8:15 and the preseason favorite was Ft. Walton Beach. Their top five shot out from the gun running in a pack. After the 1st mile, we had passed through in roughly 5:05, Mark Robertson (Booker T. Washington) and I took over. Changing leads Mark and I glided through two miles in 10:15. With about 1200m left Thomas, my teammate who had been running a few yards behind us started to make a move. He started picking up the pace gradually dropping Mark and I. He took 1st in 15:47. I held for 2nd with a 15:54. Mark, who has only run in high school for two years, broke 16 as well running 15:58. Team wise, Ft. Walton showed why they are always a threat come November winning with a measly 42 points. My team took 2nd and we are showing great improvement. We are picking up where we left off last year, with most of the team running close to what they ran at state. Third went to Pace who are looking to make it out of a tough Region 1.
Our next race will be in Mobile at the Challenge of Champions. We look to continue to improve as a team and race some great competition. Good luck to all runners as we make our way towards November 9th and I will see you out there on the course.
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