Done Coaching, So Now I Can Cheer

GSL (Greater Spokane League - 3A) Mead/Ferris/SP/MSHS

The junior high season at Asotin ended on the 13th, so I had some time to go watch the older kids racing. I was at Mead in Spokane on Wednesday and at Clarkston for the District 9 meet Saturday.

The Mead meet was right after school and the GSL women's championship was on the line, with the hosts in contention. Last year it rained, a slow cold drizzle. The sunshine and sixty degrees temps were a substantial improvement.

After the JV races, the women took to the line. The emotional leader of the team, Rayanna, kept the ladies focused on getting ready for the race. Once it started, a cold bug kept her from having the race she hoped for. She ran with a lot of guts

Teammate Hannah Tomeo went out with the Mt. Spokane ladies at Coach Dori Whitford's direction. As Dori said, she "wanted to give her more than one way to race." To often, the coaches aren't teaching racing strategy, turning a foot race into a horse race. Yet, as Rono and Lindgren proved, strategy has a place in cross country and forcing your opponent into mistakes can lead to satisfying victories.

In the end, the top three Mt. Spokane ran away from the Mead ladies. Mead took the next four spots. A pretty good dose of dominance by both programs. Something that should cheer the Mead ladies - Mt. Spokane graduates two of those top three. Mead has their top six back and several JV girls nearly ready to step up to help the squad.

The men's race was more balanced, but Ferris edged Mead. Mt. Spokane runner Hayden Dressel took the lead from the start, but his team was never in serious contention. The real battle occurred in the 2-5 positions with a pair of Ferris runners, Erik Holm and Amir Ado, running stride for stride with a pair of Mead men, Will Medellin and Cameron Dean. Will, who was also in the creative writing class I taught earlier in the day, pushed against the Ferris pair, holding onto them for the entire race, with Cameron a few steps back. Behind them, a trio of Mead men tried to close on a quartet from Ferris.

The race at the front came down to a hard chase and kick. Will Medellin managed to get past Ado and Dean did as well. Into the final stretch, Holm led those two, and then launched a kick. Dean unleashed a huge kick of his own, caught Holm and captured the number two spot. Medellin didn't have quite the same finishing speed but fought like heck anyway. I love watching athletes leave it on the course.

District 9 - 2B Meet

Back on home turf, I got to cheer for kids that I coached and some that ran with my daughters. I think this is the last year I can say that. Time moves quickly - the Asotin assistant coach, Jessie Johnson, was a teammate of my middle daughter.

Photo courtesy of Suzy Cowdrey

Girls raced first and Asotin was expected to win the team title. A pack of four ran away from the rest of the field, led by Anna Ruthven of DeSales. Emily Adams stayed hard on her heels, and Carmen Eggleston and Maia Dykstra maintained contact. Mykayla Miller from Pomeroy, Celeste Davis of TCP, and Kat Stephenson (Asotin) formed the next group. Lauren Ruthven (DeSales) and Adriana Bernal (TCP) held position, and then a wave of orange crested as the rest of the Asotin Panthers flew by on the outbound leg of the course.

On the return part of that leg, before the big hill, Ruthven held the lead on Adams by about 20 meters. The Asotin freshman pair had split apart (Maia Dykstra was running with a lingering cold) with Eggleston in front. Forty meters behind them were Davis and Miller. Another gap appeared before Stephenson, running strong, popped into view. It would be nearly a minute before the next runner showed up.

Photo courtesy of Suzy Cowdrey

By the bottom of the hill Adams had closed the gap on Ruthven to a few seconds. Midway up the hill, she through on a hard surge topass the DeSales lady. The change in Emily Adams over the course of the season has been impressive. She's learned to race, and when to take chances to bust open a lead. Ruthven took second with Eggleston locking in third place. Dykstra, despite the cold, battled her way up the hill on guts to hang onto fourth, holding off another freshman, Mykayla Miller. Freshman Celeste Davis trailed in Miller.

Samantha Nicholas stirred the local crowd with a terrific kick and Paiton Vargas, in a bit of a surprise, was the number five runner for Asotin as she seems to be figuring out the whole racing part of running. All eight Asotin ladies placed in the top fifteen.

In all, freshmen captured four of the top six placements. Something that should worry other teams is that Asotin does not have a senior in their top eight. Four are freshmen, four are juniors. The Panthers appear poised for an extended run at the podium. Pomeroy also has a very young team and a growing tradition.

The men's race didn't resolve itself so quickly. Asotin and TCP were in the mix for the team title. The strength of the TCP program under Scott Larsen has always been the quality of the runners, top to bottom. He does a really nice job of bringing them along, and in good numbers, so that the middle of his pack never has a hole that a competing team can take advantage of. TCP put seven runners in the top sixteen to win the race, but only by a point as Asotin did a nice job of scoring.

Kenneth Rooks was the overall winner, and Thomas Weakland led the Panther squad. Third went to DeSales Daniel Ness, fourth to TCP's Phillip Geist, and fifth to Asotin freshman Eli Engledow. Landon Callas of Waitsburg-Prescott finished in sixth. TCP began to flex the mid-pack muscle with Cesar Robles and Thomas Mercer leading the way, Spencer Williams of Asotin in pursuit. Senior Nate Prior would be the next Asotin finisher, in twelfth place. TCP put four consecutive harriers across the line to seal the race. Thomas Martin, another promising Asotin freshman, closed out the scoring for the Panthers.  

Photo courtesy of Suzy Cowdrey

Next week, and presumably at State, these team will meet again. Podium spots and bragging rights will be on the line.

Riverside State Park, Spokane

In what is becoming a personal tradition, I am in Spokane today to visit the creative writing class taught by Dori Whitford at Mead High School. Dori, who doubles as the women's cross country coach, became a fan when Finishing Kick first came out in Running Times. She sent an email to let me know what she thought of the novel, one thing led to the next, and now I come up on a regular basis to talk to the students.

As always, they, the kids, are interesting. They had some questions pre-written for me to work with and some were really interesting. One, what is my favorite thing to write about, actually put me on the spot, mostly because I told them the truth. I like writing about teenagers. I think they were expecting me to say 'about running.' Understandable.  I think the age is fascinating - NOT that I want to go back and repeat it. I told them that, too.

About half of the class would like to write in the future and, to a person, would like to write fiction. My kind of kids. They did split on whether they prefer pen and paper or typing right into the computer. Advantages to both but it was interesting to see how they broke down. It seemed most of the pen and paper kids also liked plotting out the stories. Most are into fantasy with a smattering of thriller and mystery readers, too.

Afterwards, I went traipsing around Riverside State Park, taking off on a five mile run from the Carlson Road Trailhead. Absolutely gorgeous.

The day was a little crisper than I had prepped for - 42 degrees and I had geared out for about ten degrees warmer. Oops. Ran with what I had and figured it was good for triggering my brown fat. Not too bad once I got moving.

I had a choice of dropping down and running by the Spokane River or hill-running. Being a glutton for work, I ground my way up. There's a whole network of trails, mostly well marked. All the ones I hit had good footing though a couple of stretches had enough rock that I paid attention, lest I land in the emergency room. The pictures are from today's run.

Mother Nature's way of taking out over-tall, and inattentive, runners.

Give that kid a prize!

Today I'm taking a detour on running stuff to talk about high school. We'll get back to running over the weekend as I put together an article on how my experience with a coach has progressed.

Tuesday, I cleared my schedule and headed up to Spokane. I had two missions and a quest. The first mission was an interview with Pat Tyson, the head XC coach at Gonzaga University. Pat is every bit a gentleman and it's easy to see why he has enjoyed so much success coaching. He's incredibly positive, calling out by name students, athletes, and friends as they past us on the way to classes. More on that visit on another day.

The second mission was to visit a creative writing class at Mead High School. Dori Whitford is the teacher, the track coach, and one of my biggest fans. I offered last year to visit, meet her class and her xc team, and had a blast, so I offered to do it again during the spring semester.

What a joy! The group is eclectic in personality. I sat in with a group while they did a reading of their work in progress. I didn't have the entire backstory to work with, but the young man put together an engaging piece of writing that was imaginative and held together nciely.

Dori shared a paper from another young lady, a future writer. She's sixteen or seventeen but she has the eye of an author and a voice of her own that was apparent from the first page.

I also had a chance to meet a young lady who has been getting updates (too infrequently!) on my current book and has been hugely supportive. She had to ask special permission to visit the creative writing class instead of going to math. That's a high compliment that she offered me - I'm not sure she realizes that, but when I'm writing, she's one of the ideal readers that I hold in my head.

When I say the eye of an author, by the way, I'm talking about something quite specific and I'm not sure it can be taught. It the ability to see that one thing that defines a person or a thing or a behavior and be able to express it. It goes beyond simply seeing what is present. Like the chain of a knotted necklace folded into itself, there is one link, when you pull it, begins to unravel the whole length until the charm at the end shows through.

There's always that one person who seems to know which link to pull. When she does, the rest of us stand around and think, "How did she do that?"

In writing, we think, "I wish I could do that." You'll hear the same thing in writing with dialogue. Some writers have a knack for capturing the voice of their characters without resorting to the clumsy use of patois to get the point across. The word choices are subtle, the pacing and the rhythm shift, and the voice becomes unique to the character. The writers that pull that off have great ears. They listen and distill, and then know the words to pour on the page to bring it to life for the rest of us.

This girl has those kind of eyes. Dori called her over before the class got start. I could see repressed excitement, and a little fear, when Dori  told her that I had read part of her work. I made the comment about her eye for the telling detail. I'm not sure she realized she lifted almost onto tippy-toes while we talked and she needs to focus on breathing, but I really hope she keeps writing and working at learning the craft of writing.

The prize, though, goes to a young man in the back of the class.

I brought in copies of my books, including the new home inspection book. We were about halfway through the class when he raised his hand and asked a simple question.

"Did you know you have a grammatical error on the cover?"

The oxygen level in the room went to zero as all the kids sucked in air and I'm pretty sure my eyebrows were trying to climb over my forehead.

"I do?" (I'm great with witty repartee - always after the fact.)

He read it to me. I did. And twenty pairs of eyeballs waited to see what the Author in front was going to do.

I exploded with, "Thank you!"

Which might have been the most shocking thing I could have said to him, and in front of all of them. I reinforced the thank you with a  quick lecture on always thanking people that have helped you in your writing. This young man had done me a very large favor in pointing out something that literally hundreds of people had missed, including some professionals.

It impressed me that he had the gumption to speak up, both in front of the class and in front of me, and ask an honest question that would be sure to elicit  response. There was no way for him to know how I would react.

Neat, neat kids, all the way around. I enjoyed all the questions about writing and self-publishing, and even the discussion on story-telling after the class was over.

The quest was to find a particular wine shop. I found it - and it was closed. Sadness.

Visiting Mead High School

On Wednesday, I headed to Spokane, first to meet with Dori Whitford and her creative writing class. After that, I hung out in the runner/writer way until Mead High Schools cross country meet in the afternoon. A recap of the racing can be found over at InlandXC's Blog. 

A true pro at marketing would have gotten pictures of himself in front of the class. I was too busy yakking. 

Dori's creating writing class was interesting. For those that think teaching is easy, trying to hold the attention of 30-some odd teenagers can disabuse you of that notion. Fortunately, most of them were paying attention and a good sized group actually engaged and asked some very cool questions.

The questions ranged from the creative process - what do you do when you get writer's block (which I'm lucky enough to avoid for the most part) - to the process of publishing - how do you get a self-pubbed novel onto the different platforms. My favorite was "Do you have any plans for novels that don't include running?"

Yes!

As I expected, and Dori warned, some of the kids are very introverted and introspective. Since I'm that way myself, I get it, and appreciated the effort it took for some of those young men and women to ask questions. They won't understand how much I appreciated the help. this was my first presentation to a class like this and I was totally outside my comfort zone. I'm not a natural speaker and it takes major effort to get in front of people - but I love conversations and we ended up with a nice give and take. So much so that I almost ran the class out of time.

There was one young man in there that apparently reads tech manuals for HVAC equipment so we talked briefly about home inspections. My kind of kid.

After the presentation and before the meet, I went and ran the switchbacks near the school. For those interested, the pictures are a few posts below. It was a pleasant run, my first this season in long sleeves. Winter lurks.

I headed back up to a small strip mall to grab a bite to eat. The restaurant, conveniently enough, was right next to Runner's Soul North. I ducked in with a book and had a nice conversation with a young lady who had a creative writing degree and knew Rachel Toor. Very cool. I left her a copy of the book with an offer to drive up for a book signing. they had been thinking of having one with Rachel and might have us there together. I'm betting Rachel has more fans than me so I hope she doesn't mind .

It just dawned on me (it's early and I'm a pot short of coffee yet) that you may not know that Rachel Toor is the author - a good one! - of On the Road to Find Out. Her novel is very different from mine, with probably more mass appeal as it combines a coming of age story of a young lady with a new found love of running. 

I haven't met her in person yet despite the fact that we live only a couple of hours apart. Hopefully that will change soon. 

And think about buying her novel. It's an interesting read that goes in directions you don't expect.

It's okay to buy mine, too. Really, there's no reason not to do both.

Off to cover the District 7/9 2A/2B meet in Clarkston. Next weekend, it will be regionals in Pasco. If you want your book signed, track me down -any of the Asotin kids or parents can point me out - and I'll autograph your copy. 

Run gently, friends!