State XC

Taylor and Braden both had awesome cross country seasons! They PR every race so it's fun to watch them get faster each time. I say we live in the running capital of Utah. The kids are crazy fast and the boys team is nationally ranked. Only the top 7 runners (varsity) go to State and Taylor held her spot at 7th for most of the season and was the only Freshman (boy or girl) to go to State for their team. Braden finished 13th for the team which is so awesome! To put it in perspective of how fast their team is, Braden would be ranked top 3 on almost any other team in the state. In fact, he would be 2nd for both high schools back in Herriman had we stayed so needless to say the move has been good for my kids running to train with the fastest kids in the state.

It was quite the experience to go watch Taylor race at State. I thought since we went to the Invitational with all the schools from the state with all their runners (probably close to a thousand kids) at the beginning of the season at the same venue it would be a much smaller crowd because there would only be a few hundred kids running. Boy was I wrong! It was insane! Who knew? We barely got there in time to see Taylor start. It took us almost an hour to park and we were literally running to the starting line. I felt terrible thinking we would miss the start but I got behind the starting boxes and took a picture of Taylor less than a minute before the gun went off. She was so happy to see us and I'm so glad we made it because the route was so full of people I'm not sure if Taylor would've known we were there or not while she was running because it was complete madness. Of course she knew we were coming but not being able to see her or talk to her before her race may have made her wonder. She had a great race and ran a 20:14. Another PR but she was sad because she really wanted to break 20 minutes. She finished 6th for Farmington and 150th in her division. Taylor 23rd for Freshman for the whole state! Couldn't be more proud of her and all her hard work. She however was very frustrated and emotional at the finish. A rookie mistake was that she thought it was the same route as the Invitational but it's different for State and no one mentioned it to her so she said she struggled to know where the finish line was so she could do one last kick at the end. This route abruptly ends after a hill so she literally climbed the hill and saw the finish line. I think it's all good experience and she'll learn and get even better from it. She has regionals in a few weeks and NXR in Arizona in a month. So with those meets and another 3 years of XC she'll have plenty of time to break 20 minutes and 19 minutes. I'm certain she'll do it.