New England Indoor Track and Field Championships

On Friday morning we all headed down to Boston.  Wes and I dropped Heather off at Joanie's house for an overnighter before heading out, and Wayne and Cole traveled down in their coach's vehicle.  (Cole was allowed to choose a teammate to make the trip with him, and he chose Wayne.)Lake Region High School had paid for rooms for the coach and Wayne and Cole.  The school also paid for their gas and meals.  Cousin Emily had warned us that the Best Western we were all staying at was not the best area of town, but the hotel itself was fine.  I liked our rooms - they were comfy and clean.  The staff was great.

 Our view.

 Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, Wayne and Cole had some free time to explore with their coach.  The running events had originally been scheduled to begin at 11:30 Saturday, which meant Cole's 1000m race would have been at around 1:00.  Friday evening, event officials sent out a message that, due to a "storm" of 3-6 inches of snow, the entire event had been pushed back.  Running events would not begin until 4 o'clock.  Estimating that Cole would not run until 7, really threw a kink in our departure plans.  We didn't want to leave Joanie responsible for Heather and transporting her back and forth to her Newport basketball tournament.  Joanie and Heather were also dealing with our sick cat, the dog, and chickens.  Wes was concerned about plowing, if we were to get snow.  We were thinking we wouldn't be able to stay to see Cole race, which felt like a huge waste of time and money, to go down there for nothing.  

In the end, after hemming and hawing long enough, Wes and I did end up staying to see Cole's race.  There never was very much snow, and we knew a night drive back would not be too terrible.

Cole warms up.

 Waiting to enter the track for his race.

A race official shows some of the runners where the start line is.

Cole placed dead last in his race.  However, we have to consider that he was the only freshman in a race with mostly seniors.  He had qualified without even really training (Lake Region students do not have regular access to an indoor track, and winter running outside in VT is sketchy.) Also, he did better his Vermont State qualifying time. (I will try to update with times later after I verify with Cole)

We were really proud of Cole and glad we ended up staying to see the race.  We are also really thankful to Joanie for being so flexible and dealing with Heather and her basketball tournament, and all of our animals.

Heather is #15.  Peter and Jeanne also attended one of her games and Jeanne sent me this photo.  We got back to Joanies house at around 9:30 to pick her up.

 The Glover team took 2nd place in the Newport Rotary tournament.  She had 2 games on Sunday which we were able to watch.