Alaina and Mason's Track Meet- State
I took a full day off of work to head up to Des Moines, Iowa for my niece Alaina's events in the preliminary round of the Iowa High School Athletic Association state track meet. My nephew Mason was also at this meet as an alternate.
Alaina was no longer the terrified freshman who was daunted by the 6,000 plus crowd. She was the the upperclassmen who was leading her team.
My first contact with Alaina at the tournament was as she was preparing to run in the 100 meter dash. I was in Galesburg, making a stop on my way from Lewistown to the Quad Cities. She asked for Liquid IV. I cased the Galesburg Hy Vee and found some of that, plus chapstick. We wouldn't be able to intercept with her that night, much as she needed that Liquid IV powder, so we arranged to meet with her the next day at Drake Stadium.
Scarfed down some of my leftovers from La Fogata for dinner, and then jumped on the road with my parents for Des Moines. For the trip up, we had Disc 1 of Greatest Hits Volume 47. It had already been debuted on our trip to Coralville in March to visit Kayla, but Des Moines is a long drive, and so we debuted it a second time. Godspell. Elton John. Peter Gabriel. Linda Ronstadt. Original Music from Velton Ray Bunch and Mike Post from the soundtrack of Quantum Leap. Toto. Leroy Anderson. Pippin (2013 revival). The Carpenters. Steve Winwood. Doris Day. The Beatles. Boz Scaggs.
Arrived at the Quality Inn in Altoona shortly before 11 pm.
Having gone across the river to purchase a copy of the Quad City Times from Friday, May 20th, I found that Alaina had performed ably in the 200 meter dash on Thursday, with a time of 27.26 seconds. That's fast. Keep in mind, 200 meters is the equivalent of a block and a half. That'd be almost like me running from my house at 2131-37th Street in Rock Island up to the Aldi in 27.26 seconds. Hard to imagine. This was good for 16th overall, but you had to be in the top 8 across all heats of the preliminaries to advance to the final round.
The next morning, I went out on an adventure to try to locate a copy of the Des Moines Register. Yes, I'll grant you, they had copies of the USA Today at the Quality Inn. But the Iowa State High School Association Track and Field Championships were a bit too local of a story for USA Today. I finally found a newspaper at the Casey's on the corner of 34th Street and Hubbell Drive in Altoona.
Since it was only the preliminary rounds, and she was in a class 3A School (1A and 4A schools ran in the morning), we hung out at the hotel all morning. I worked on the edTPA and graded papers. The entire afternoon and evening was spent at the Track Meet.
And yes, we managed to find a pair of sweatpants for Alaina at the Walmart in Altoona off Hubbell Drive, which she had requested specifically to put on over her shorts for the warm-ups, as it was unseasonably cool out.
Mom, Jen and I grabbed lunch at Jethro's BBQ. I graded some papers while I waited for the food. Barbecued pulled pork sandwich. Fries. Diet Pepsi. Did have leftovers, since I didn't have a great deal of appetite left from breakfast.
First came the 4 by 200 meter relay. Alaina competed in this race at about 4:30 pm. She was in Lane 6. She led all runners during her stretch of the relay.
The team would have taken 6th place, but there was a hand-off outside the zone by the 3rd and 4th runners. Therefore, the team got disqualified, and so the results wouldn't have been published in the newspaper anyways.
It wound up being a short afternoon, by track and field standards. Alaina only competed in two events, and her next one was at about 6:20. It was the 4 by 100 meter relay. This was the one that Alaina considered the team having a shot at advancing from the preliminaries to the final rounds. This was the one where Assumption was the one to beat. I'll grant you, they were on the wings of a team that got disqualified at Mount Pleasant the week before. This allowed them to take 2nd in this event at substate. Alaina felt very sorry for the athlete.
However, the shoe was on the other foot this time. Poor Alaina ran her heart out, but the third runner stumbled and fell, and the handoff was invalidated. The team was disqualified, so again, nothing has been found in the Quad City Times regarding a finish time or record. The team was of course devastated, but these things happen in track! Actually, Alaina had a great afternoon of competing, regardless of whether her efforts go into the record books or not.
I saw some hard falls during the high jump, the long jump, and the hurdles. One or two people went down and hard, and seemed as though to have sustained career ending injuries right there at Drake.
According to the Quad City Times from Saturday, May 21st, Alaina was in the 400 meter relay. So I would assume that she ran a preliminary 400 on Thursday evening. It may have been later than the newspaper went to press. According to the Quad City Times, The Assumption Team came in 21st place overall, with Alaina McConnell, Bella Motley, Annika Kotula, and Kelly Grobstich collectively finishing the 400 meter relay in 54.95 seconds. Remarkable, given that would be 3 city blocks in under a minute. I'll grant you, that's split up between four runners. Even so, that's three city blocks in under a minute. In perspective, that'd be like if they completed a mile, in say a 1600 by 100 meter relay, in under the space of four minutes. Pretty spectacular.
ALTHOUGH THAT COULD be the time for her 4 by 100 meter relay from Friday, which would indicate that despite the fall, they still got a finishing time, and a place. Will need to check with Alaina to see if they had two preliminary rounds of the 4 by 100.
The most spectacular part of the whole experience was getting that big push, that momentum for Alaina to get her work done and graduate. Her graduation ceremony was even more exciting than state for me. While I didn't have the opportunity to help Alaina with any homework at State, I had my laptop with me at Drake Stadium just in case I ran into her, and she wanted to knock down a creative writing activity.
I did get to talk to Alaina briefly, just outside the stadium, when we made the handoff of the sweatpants, the Liquid IV, and the chapstick.
That night, Alaina finally messaged me once we had gotten back to the hotel. I reassured her that she had done a great job, though she was devastated that the officials had applied the rule book and didn't even give them a finish time, much less qualify them for the Finals.
Dad was the one who suggested we get a picture by the Drake Bulldog. We wound up having a kind lady offer to take the picture for us, with my old Sony Carl Zeiss 12.1 Megapixel Cyber-shot camera. It works still! I've had it since 2009. When the battery goes low on my phone, or I'm running low on data or internal storage, there comes out the old digital camera.
I've only been using a digital camera since 2007, so I still consider it relatively new technology.
I went with Dad to Jethro's BBQ for dinner, where I got a dinner salad and I remember a Mountain Dew, due to the fact I was served Mountain Dew at my most recent blood donation. And it brought me right out of my light-headedness. Then I went home to the hotel, where I had a little more of the barbecued pulled pork from lunch. There really wasn't much to do in the evening, so I worked on the Planning portion of the edTPA until the 10:00 news came on. We watched a little bit of Colbert, and I ultimately went to bed around 11 pm.
Saturday we drove home, following breakfast, and I'm happy to report that we made it home in time for me to make it to the meeting of the backstage crew of Something Rotten! A future post will be forthcoming with details about that adventure.
Congratulations to Alaina for getting to state again! This may be the furthest from home I am able to get this summer.
Alaina was no longer the terrified freshman who was daunted by the 6,000 plus crowd. She was the the upperclassmen who was leading her team.
My first contact with Alaina at the tournament was as she was preparing to run in the 100 meter dash. I was in Galesburg, making a stop on my way from Lewistown to the Quad Cities. She asked for Liquid IV. I cased the Galesburg Hy Vee and found some of that, plus chapstick. We wouldn't be able to intercept with her that night, much as she needed that Liquid IV powder, so we arranged to meet with her the next day at Drake Stadium.
Scarfed down some of my leftovers from La Fogata for dinner, and then jumped on the road with my parents for Des Moines. For the trip up, we had Disc 1 of Greatest Hits Volume 47. It had already been debuted on our trip to Coralville in March to visit Kayla, but Des Moines is a long drive, and so we debuted it a second time. Godspell. Elton John. Peter Gabriel. Linda Ronstadt. Original Music from Velton Ray Bunch and Mike Post from the soundtrack of Quantum Leap. Toto. Leroy Anderson. Pippin (2013 revival). The Carpenters. Steve Winwood. Doris Day. The Beatles. Boz Scaggs.
Arrived at the Quality Inn in Altoona shortly before 11 pm.
Having gone across the river to purchase a copy of the Quad City Times from Friday, May 20th, I found that Alaina had performed ably in the 200 meter dash on Thursday, with a time of 27.26 seconds. That's fast. Keep in mind, 200 meters is the equivalent of a block and a half. That'd be almost like me running from my house at 2131-37th Street in Rock Island up to the Aldi in 27.26 seconds. Hard to imagine. This was good for 16th overall, but you had to be in the top 8 across all heats of the preliminaries to advance to the final round.
The next morning, I went out on an adventure to try to locate a copy of the Des Moines Register. Yes, I'll grant you, they had copies of the USA Today at the Quality Inn. But the Iowa State High School Association Track and Field Championships were a bit too local of a story for USA Today. I finally found a newspaper at the Casey's on the corner of 34th Street and Hubbell Drive in Altoona.
Since it was only the preliminary rounds, and she was in a class 3A School (1A and 4A schools ran in the morning), we hung out at the hotel all morning. I worked on the edTPA and graded papers. The entire afternoon and evening was spent at the Track Meet.
And yes, we managed to find a pair of sweatpants for Alaina at the Walmart in Altoona off Hubbell Drive, which she had requested specifically to put on over her shorts for the warm-ups, as it was unseasonably cool out.
Mom, Jen and I grabbed lunch at Jethro's BBQ. I graded some papers while I waited for the food. Barbecued pulled pork sandwich. Fries. Diet Pepsi. Did have leftovers, since I didn't have a great deal of appetite left from breakfast.
First came the 4 by 200 meter relay. Alaina competed in this race at about 4:30 pm. She was in Lane 6. She led all runners during her stretch of the relay.
The team would have taken 6th place, but there was a hand-off outside the zone by the 3rd and 4th runners. Therefore, the team got disqualified, and so the results wouldn't have been published in the newspaper anyways.
It wound up being a short afternoon, by track and field standards. Alaina only competed in two events, and her next one was at about 6:20. It was the 4 by 100 meter relay. This was the one that Alaina considered the team having a shot at advancing from the preliminaries to the final rounds. This was the one where Assumption was the one to beat. I'll grant you, they were on the wings of a team that got disqualified at Mount Pleasant the week before. This allowed them to take 2nd in this event at substate. Alaina felt very sorry for the athlete.
However, the shoe was on the other foot this time. Poor Alaina ran her heart out, but the third runner stumbled and fell, and the handoff was invalidated. The team was disqualified, so again, nothing has been found in the Quad City Times regarding a finish time or record. The team was of course devastated, but these things happen in track! Actually, Alaina had a great afternoon of competing, regardless of whether her efforts go into the record books or not.
I saw some hard falls during the high jump, the long jump, and the hurdles. One or two people went down and hard, and seemed as though to have sustained career ending injuries right there at Drake.
According to the Quad City Times from Saturday, May 21st, Alaina was in the 400 meter relay. So I would assume that she ran a preliminary 400 on Thursday evening. It may have been later than the newspaper went to press. According to the Quad City Times, The Assumption Team came in 21st place overall, with Alaina McConnell, Bella Motley, Annika Kotula, and Kelly Grobstich collectively finishing the 400 meter relay in 54.95 seconds. Remarkable, given that would be 3 city blocks in under a minute. I'll grant you, that's split up between four runners. Even so, that's three city blocks in under a minute. In perspective, that'd be like if they completed a mile, in say a 1600 by 100 meter relay, in under the space of four minutes. Pretty spectacular.
ALTHOUGH THAT COULD be the time for her 4 by 100 meter relay from Friday, which would indicate that despite the fall, they still got a finishing time, and a place. Will need to check with Alaina to see if they had two preliminary rounds of the 4 by 100.
The most spectacular part of the whole experience was getting that big push, that momentum for Alaina to get her work done and graduate. Her graduation ceremony was even more exciting than state for me. While I didn't have the opportunity to help Alaina with any homework at State, I had my laptop with me at Drake Stadium just in case I ran into her, and she wanted to knock down a creative writing activity.
I did get to talk to Alaina briefly, just outside the stadium, when we made the handoff of the sweatpants, the Liquid IV, and the chapstick.
That night, Alaina finally messaged me once we had gotten back to the hotel. I reassured her that she had done a great job, though she was devastated that the officials had applied the rule book and didn't even give them a finish time, much less qualify them for the Finals.
Dad was the one who suggested we get a picture by the Drake Bulldog. We wound up having a kind lady offer to take the picture for us, with my old Sony Carl Zeiss 12.1 Megapixel Cyber-shot camera. It works still! I've had it since 2009. When the battery goes low on my phone, or I'm running low on data or internal storage, there comes out the old digital camera.
I've only been using a digital camera since 2007, so I still consider it relatively new technology.
I went with Dad to Jethro's BBQ for dinner, where I got a dinner salad and I remember a Mountain Dew, due to the fact I was served Mountain Dew at my most recent blood donation. And it brought me right out of my light-headedness. Then I went home to the hotel, where I had a little more of the barbecued pulled pork from lunch. There really wasn't much to do in the evening, so I worked on the Planning portion of the edTPA until the 10:00 news came on. We watched a little bit of Colbert, and I ultimately went to bed around 11 pm.
Saturday we drove home, following breakfast, and I'm happy to report that we made it home in time for me to make it to the meeting of the backstage crew of Something Rotten! A future post will be forthcoming with details about that adventure.
Congratulations to Alaina for getting to state again! This may be the furthest from home I am able to get this summer.