Home? That's probably not the best answer regarding Blake Mattern and our adventure up to Port Angeles this weekend. Although it is the farthest he has ever traveled away from home to race. How about "away from his family?" Again, not a great answer even though his family went out of town a different direction - a fun trip that he had to miss out on to compete in Port Angeles. What about "the competition?" Now that sounds about right, at least from other freshmen. He was the 5th fastest freshman of the day (there were 41 that raced in all of the boy's races). He is currently ranked as the third best freshman in our 13 school district. He seems to be adapting to the 5000 meter distance and we are looking forward to watching his progress as he is developing into a future all league runner.
During Wednesday's race on our home course, Daya Sathyaraj was comfortably in 5th place heading into the last 400 meters of the race. Unfortunately, she took a "scenic detour" and ended up running off course (well, she was still on the course, but the wrong part of it). By the time she got back on course, she had dropped to 7th place, missing out on a decent time. It was a "rookie mistake" that she will learn well from. On Saturday, she not only stayed on the race course, she stayed on course to being one of the top freshmen girls in 2A state: her 5K converted time would rank her in the top 20, and the third best freshman in our 13 school district. Since this year is her first year of XC, we look forward to more incredible improvement from her in the years to come at Washougal High School.