Waterville Relays, Track 2011

Waterville Relays took place this past windy, sunny and snowy bi-polar Thursday. Mt. Blue had not been to this particular meet since the days that it was hosted by Winslow, so it's been a while. If you haven't had the chance to get onto Waterville's track this year, there have been several major changes, one being that it has been newly resurfaced (so we were actually able to wear spikes!). The other is that it is now red.
Upon arrival, Coach (this being my sixth season with my mother as my coach, I've decided it's damn well time to start referring to her as Coach, although "Momma Coach", "Coachie", "MC" and "Beast" are just as effective) was asked by members of the team how many laps the 400 was. And other people inquired about the distance of a 100 and a 200 meter race. Whoops, so let me back it up a little bit and explain where our team currently stands.

As you can see, more than half of the people on our team are brand new to the sport. This year, our new throwing coach was most affective in recruiting some of the football guys to join up (what seems like half of the guys in my grade, actually), so this year won't be another "cross country team- just in track season" year, which is fantastic to see. We also are not able to even use the tar "track" at our school because the whole site is under construction, getting completely rebuilt, which means that in several years, MB will actually have a track facility and will be able to host events! But until then, we are making it work by referring to ourselves as the Mt. Blue Road and Parking Lot team. Gotta love hill workouts during track season! Anyways, the first time that half of our team had ever stepped onto a real facility was on Thursday, so questions were to be expected from the newbies.
I was in the winning 4x8 (with Sr. Gwen Beacham, Fr. Sarah Wade, and Fr. Miranda Nicely); we finished in 10:44- we've got 44 seconds to cut off to beat last year's new school record time, which is completely doable. My DMR team took second to MTA, and was comprised of Miranda, Sr. Allison Brown, Gwen and myself. My third event, the 4x4, came in third (same members as the 4x8). The important thing was that improvement was shown since the beginning of last year.
Athletes of the Meet: Shane O'Neill and Miranda Nicely. I would say that Miranda will be a freshman to watch this season, but she's already proven that she IS one to watch this season, running a 2:37.3 in the 4x8, followed by a 2:36 in the DMR. Wowzah. "Nicely done, Miranda!"
KKNW, Addie