Well, when I said I was going to post weekly, I did throw the 'try' in there. :) Hopefully we'll be more on top of it from here on out. Anyway, Laura writing here:
Some of you may be wondering where and how we compete. Most collegiate meets allow open or unattached individuals to compete alongside college kids. Josh and I scour the schedules of the local colleges to try and find enough meets to go to. Between the community colleges and NCAA universities, we can usually find enough meets to go to without too many weekends off. The only downside is that unattached/open competitors are not allowed at championship meets. Thus, our season has to come to a close beginning of May when all the colleges start going to their league meets. Unless of course we get good enough to compete with the big kids overseas/nationals, etc. ;)
Prior to the first multi, we competed at a few all-comer meets to start off the season. All-comer means exactly what it says; anyone can come. There were people as young as 5 and as old as 80 doing a little bit of everything. (At one meet, this woman in her 70s did the 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 all in one day!!) During one of those meets, I tore my hamstring during the 200 (which was a huge bummer cause I had gotten out of the blocks totally awesomely). I ended up taking off 4 weeks of competing and my first meet back was my first heptathlon. (Yikes!) About halfway through the season, Josh threw out his back, causing him to take off about 3 weeks, including one of the multis. Other than that, we were relatively healthy the whole season, which was a huge accomplishment!
Highlights from the multis:
Chico Multi Classic: Cal State, Chico February 28-March 1
First multi ever! Super excited and super scared since this was the first time we competed in many of the events. We both had no idea how things were going to go, how we would feel at the end each day, and how we would fare against the other competitors. The dec was slated to start at 11 with the hep starting at 12. Luckily, we got there with plenty of time because the hep time was moved up 2 hours earlier, with no notification! I only had 15 min to warm-up, but I got through the hurdles and only slammed into 1 of them! J Coach V (my coach at Davis) happened to be an official there and UC Davis brought their multi team so it was fun competing with them there. Ended up with 4263 points and should have taken 3rd in the meet if it wasn’t for my terrible 800 showing (took 4th btw). Considering it was my first one though and I had absolutely no idea how to time it or how I would feel, I finished with only a +10sec split between laps! (Which is pretty awful. Haha.) Felt surprisingly ok afterwards. Here’s my results: http://www.chicowildcats.com/documents/2013/3/1/Hep_final_results.pdf?id=1663
Josh ended up with 5612 points and took 7th place. He also had just come off of taking 2 weeks off due to a strained calf. The events went pretty much as expected. Hurdles were difficult since he’d never done a hurdle race before and hadn’t come out of blocks before, but what are you going to do? He kicked down one of the Davis guys to take 2nd in the 1500 and showed his true distance runner side. Here’s his results: http://www.chicowildcats.com/documents/2013/3/1/Dec_A_final_results.pdf?id=1665
Best part of it all was the burger and milkshake at the end of it! Totally worth it!
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| Naymoo!!! First multis ever in a Horsecow uniform! |
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| Our sweet shirts! |
Cal Multi Meet: UC Berkeley, March 27-28
Josh took this meet off because his back was hurting. It was a weird meet since it was a Wednesday and a Thursday. I think they do this so that schools can send people out for this meet, then have them run stanford invite that weekend. Day 1 was really nice and sunny and then day 2 was kinda cloudy and cold. I ended up with 4474 points and took 5th place. Should have taken like 9th, but almost all of the Iowa State women dropped out at some point along the way. Was a weird experience seeing competitors show up to a meet with the knowledge that they weren’t going to finish the whole thing; didn’t really understand it, but I guess we have different goals. All the events went pretty similar to the first meet. Won the long jump with a 18’ jump and shaved 6 seconds off my 800 time. (Shows you how slow the first one went.) Here’s the full results: http://www.rtspt.com/events/cal/multis13/?DB_OEM_ID=30100
Claremont Classic: Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, May 9-10
Final meet of the season! Whoop whoop! Decided to travel to beautiful SoCal and compete against an Olympian and multiple Olympic Trials competitors. Not at all intimidating! We both realized that high jump is definitely an event that we have neglected. Josh jumped a little under what he previously did and I barely cleared opening height. Josh ended up with 6017 points and taking 6th. He got a PR (personal record) in every event except high jump, including a 3 second PR in the hurdles! He also won the 1500 while running entirely by himself. Met his goal of the season by breaking 6000 points.
Laura ended up with 4711 points and took 5th. (Beat the Olympian! But she also only actually competed in like 4 events.) I also got a PR in everything except high jump, including a wind-legal 10-inch PR in the long jump!! (LJ was my main event in college, so to PR in a multi was awesome) It was a really great way to end the season. While down there, we also got to see a bunch of friends (the Rainwaters, the Johnsons, and Valerie). You can find the full results here: http://www.cmsathletics.org/meetresults/track/classic/classic13.htm
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| Claremont Classic Decathlon Finishers |
Overall, the season went pretty well. Multi competitors are super friendly and it really feels like it’s own little club. Even got a sweet Multi T-shirt from Chico. Really looking forward to this next season and seeing how it goes seeing as we aren’t starting from complete scratch on half the events.
