Mt. Blue Relays 2011

It has recently dawned on me that this is my year of lasts with the Mt. Blue cross country team. It makes sense that it would be a bit sad for any graduating athlete, sure, but I feel like it's a little bit different in my case. If you were to go through my endless drawers of running shirts in my room, you'd be able to find specially ordered child's size shirts from the Mt. Blue Relays dating back to the 90's. Why? Because I've been wrapped up in the Maine running community way back since the days my mom used to push me in my lime green jogger at her track practices as she coached her athletes. I mean, I used to attend the annual Acadian camping trip in diapers and shyly pass out the ribbons at the Mt. Blue Relays awards ceremony. So knowing that this past Friday has been my last Relays ever is.. hard. Ok, enough nostalgia. This year had to be the muddiest Mt. Blue Relays in living memory. On Thursday, most of our practice was spent draining the water off of the muddy spots on the course and then shoveling kitty litter-like gravel onto those areas. But by the time I ran over those affected areas as the first leg of our team, the conditions were no better than before we'd started the previous day. (Oh, on a side note, there were 18 teams present, a MB Relays high). By the time I tagged off to our second runner, I'd literally eaten mud out on the course, because of the boys in front of me kicking it back as they trampled through the mess. Such a good time. I ended up having the second fastest girls time of the day to Bethany Brown of Waterville, and our girl's "A" team placed second to Mt. Ararat, with Waterville rounding up the top three. On the boy's side, Bangor won, Mt. Ararat was second, and our boys ended up third. After we finished, several members of the team decided to hit up the muddy places on the course, and ended up having a bit of a mud fight. Actually, it ended up being a bit more intense than that; at one point my cousin literally tackled me to the ground right in the middle of it all. By the time we left, anyone running over that section would really wonder what had happened there, as it appeared as though people had literally rolled around in the mud.. :D Dancing, as always, was sweet, and the dinner nice and pasta-ey. Once awards were over we quickly got bundled up in warmer clothes to go support the football team (it was homecoming game), which was followed by our homecoming dance. Needless to say, I think we all rested fairly well that night :) The video link is below, which was fantastically created by Brewer!
http://www.youtube.com/user/runsub5#p/u/0/wjV0_D1piGE
KKNW, Addie