Tanner's Cross Country Season

Last year Tanner's buddies talked him into joining the Cross Country team.  It was a way for them all to spend some time together, get in shape, and have an opportunity to get out of school every now and then.  Well, it turns out that they are pretty good.  And after a year of falling in love with Cross Country, Tanner decided to pour his heart and soul into it this year.  Over the summer he made a goal to join his high school running club and ran over 300 miles, which earned him a team jacket with his name on it.  Not only did that jacket help his looks, but it also improved his running a ton!  He was a beast this year improving his time on nearly every race.  To qualify to be on the Varsity team, the coach takes the top seven runners from the previous race and Tanner ended up making Varsity every race except one, as he had missed the previous race due to a bad cold.  He wanted to go to the state meet so badly and it was looking pretty good for his team at districts.  As long as he could place in the top 7 on his team he was guaranteed a spot at state.  He practiced hard, he ate healthy, and and prayed hard so that he would be able to run his best and he did it!  He was so excited to qualify for state, which has been his biggest goal all season.

Another huge goal for Tanner this season was to medal in a race, which he finally accomplished at Districts, earning 7th place for the men's 5K.  Amazing!

A Hands-Down District win for the Snake River boys and girls!

The district qualifier was along the American Falls Reservoir and after the meet, the team ran down the beach in a celebratory romp.  It was a happy scene!

Here are some shots of Tanner throughout the season:

Isn't he so handsome and fit!

Tanner went into the State Meet expecting to place 6th or 7th on his team.  He had a personal best of 19:07 going in.

Zac and I watched in amazement at the last turn as Tanner passed his teammate, the one who would have been the 5th teammate to cross, a boy he hasn't beat the entire season, and then watched him kick it into hyper drive as he crossed the line at 18:32.44 obliverating his old record by almost 45 seconds.  He had never in his life broken 19 minutes before.  Our boy pretty much ran (3) six-minute miles all in a row.  It blows my mind.

Snake River boys finished in 4th place and the girls finished at 2nd place.

My favorite part of the day was watching the girls, who ran before the boys.  We watched as the girls crossed that line exhausted collapsing onto the ground and into the arms of teammates and family.  Some were ecstatic because they had won the race or placed high and they knew they would help their team scores.  Some were bawling.  They didn't beat the girl in front of them, hadn't run their best race, or knew that their team hadn't won.  But one girl towards the end of the middle pack was smiling radiantly as she crossed the finish line.  She was jumping up and down and pumping her fists in the air.  She hadn't come even close to winning the race and her team didn't even place, but I watched her as she found her parents ecstatic, asking them if they saw her beat her previous time.  Though she was there to compete and had a team to support.  This girl had personal goals and the euphoria from accomplishing her personal goals was what brought her the most joy on that day.

Likewise, we pretty much knew Tanner wasn't going to win that race.  We had seen the rankings from the best times of all of the runners competing that day.  We knew it would likely be out of Tanner's reach to overcome that time deficit to beat the fastest runner at state.  But as we watched our boy burn it down the finish line determined to beat a teammate ranked ahead of him and blowing his previous time out of the water by such a wide margin, our eyes were filled with tears of pure joy as we hugged our boy who was grinning from ear to ear.  He had not only accomplished every goal he set this season, but blew them out of the water!

We can't wait to watch these determined boys and girls continue to practice and grow and come back with new goals next year.  This has become my favorite sport to watch because it is so gratifying being able to see these kids set and meet their personal goals as individuals as well as a team.  And what a great team this is.  These kids are so good and love to have fun together.  We thank our stars every day that Tanner has Cross Country in his life.