Oh, the Places You'll Go!

It was a great weekend! Gavin competed in the USATF Junior Olympics State Track meet in Johnston this weekend.

He got off to a rough start in the long jump - we couldn't really see from where we were, but when he came back he said he scratched twice. He ended up coming in 7th place with a distance of 6'5".

That same day (Saturday) he ran the 100m. Out of 3 heats and 21 kids, he came in 13th place, but ran a personal record (PR) of 19.64 seconds. The top 8 made it to finals the next day.

Sunday we went back to run the 400m. Usually all the events are the same day, so it was nice to come back with fresh legs. Except, not having done the track meet circuit before, and not wanting to be late for our event, I got us there 2 hours before his race started. Which led to two fairly grumpy boys. When Chad got him going to warm up for the race, it was complaint city.

It was time to race and he was in lane 6. I had looked at the previous years results to see what time the top 6 had come in at (top 6 go to regionals) and 6th place had a time of 1:31 ish. Gav's fastest time had been 1:39 ish so I didn't know what to think.

By the time he hit the starting lines for the 200m, I thought his time was looking good (39 sec), but he tends to start off too fast, so I was hoping he could hang on. As he came down the home stretch I cheered him along and I could see him dig in to push through the end.

He set a PR of 1:32.31 and came in 6th, making it to the regional meet in MN! So we are going to be making a long weekend of it. He likely won't make it past the first round, but I think the whole team aspect, and the camraderie will be a fun experience. We've got a couple weeks to focus on nothing but the 400m run, so I'm hoping that the weather holds out for some good practices.

Any time Gavin accomplishes anything like this, I can't help but get taken back to that place. That place of sitting by his isolette in the NICU begging him to gain weight. Begging him to breathe. Begging him to eat. Hearing the words "brain hemorrhages" and not knowing what that would mean in terms of impairment. Having no idea what our "normal" was going to be, but just so happy that he was alive. That place. The place I hate remembering, but that I never want to forget, because I want to appreciate forever how far we have come.

The journey out of the NICU was a marathon riddled with hurdles. The road ahead is wide open.