After an amazing Thanksgiving, Julia and I were home for 4 short days before it was time for cross country nationals. Three people from our team traveled to Knoxville: Julia and Aidan (both competing in the 11 year old division) and Anna (competing in the 13 year old division). We carpooled to the airport with Anna and her mom super early Friday morning and flew out to Tennessee. The plane ride was uneventful but Julia was excited to be on a plane.
We arrived in Knoxville on-time, headed to a quick lunch (Julia's choice...Subway) and then headed to Victor Ashe Park, site of the race. Julia had a course walk through at 1pm and we just made it. The park was absolutely beautiful. The course? Beautiful but also almost entirely uphill. No exaggeration. I knew pretty quickly that Julia's four practices all season would put her at a major disadvantage. Her race strategy would not work on this course either (she likes to run medium pace for the first mile or so and then speed up and pass people toward the end). While she did complete two bridge practices, that is not the sames as running up a steel rock incline. She was worried she would trip and hurt herself.
Next up, she officially check-in, received her race packet and then we headed to the hotel. The park was only 4 miles from downtown and I found a great AAA rate at The Tennessian, a fancy hotel (same price as the Holiday Inn!). The hotel was gorgeous and had the most amazing, HUGE shower (big enough for 6 people). Julia did homework for a few hours and then we walked a few blocks to market street for dinner. The downtown area was super cute with an ice skating rink, light display, huge Christmas tree, chocolate shop and even a parade! We didn't stay for the parade but had fun walking around.
Race day! Julia's goals were to #1-not come in last and #2-not fall. She knew she was not in the best shape due to lack of practice so this performance was on pure talent alone. I was very impressed for an event of this magnitude (there were a lot of kids competing) they were only running 15 minutes behind schedule. You may be wondering..how does this work?
The kids raced oldest to youngest with girls going first (opposite of how they raced during the regular season, they always did youngest to oldest with boys and girls combined). The announcer calls the group and the kids get in a huge line. They are checked in individually where they verify their race number is pinned on their shirt and then they walk through a scanner that verifies their identity (they have an RFID chip on each shoe so this process was extremely fast, a few seconds per athlete). Each kid was assigned a "box" and position at the starting line. The boxes were outlined in white paint and labeled. I think there were around 40 boxes. Once all the athletes were checked in, they lined up (literally a GIANT line) and then they ran.
The 11-12 year olds run together although they are scored and place separately. There is a rule that is someone falls in the first 100M they will stop everyone and start over. That happened with Julia's group-they got to the 100M mark and made the girls all turn around and start over again. There were 250 11-12 girls running so it was a tad crazy to watch!
I am so proud of Julia. She ended up placing around 100th out of 150 11 year olds in the country. That is pretty awesome!! She did great!! She also knows that for next year she needs to practice and she needs to find some real trails in Houston to train on. She really wants to place next year.
Next up we headed to Dollywood for the afternoon to check out their rollercoasters. The park was absolutely adorable and had the cutest Christmas decorations. The coasters were a blast too! I told Julia we could go to dinner wherever she wanted and we ended up at....I kid you not, Taco Bell LOL.
One more night in the hotel and we flew out the following morning. It was a great trip and such a great experience.
Team Beastmode
Dollywood
