Seaside 3 Course Challenge......

Last Friday the cross country team headed for the coast. The coach took the team on the mini bus. Cody and I took the Expedition and hauled all of the gear.


We stayed at Nehalem Bay state park campground. Riddle: How many cross country runners does it take to set up one tent?



After we set up camp we headed north to Seaside High School where they were serving dinner to the kids for $3:00 which included spaghetti, roll, salad and a drink. The best part was coaches ate free! There were a BUNCH of people eating and having a good time. This meet is huge with over 90 schools coming from as far away as Cerritos California! After dinner the kids headed out to look over the track at the high school and of course they figured out a game to play with someones shoe.


Then we headed back to camp. The kids needed to get in a run so we headed down to the beach. Everyone got in a few miles on the beach and then we had time for some pictures! What an awesome group of kids this is. We have the pleasure of having two foreign exchange students and a home schooler this year that adds a really cool mix into the group.



Well the kids knew that eating at 5:00 in the afternoon they were going to be hungry again. So they brought a bunch of extra food (some of it the coaches did not know about). So about 8:00 they start cooking and eating. Out came a pot to make more spaghetti. There was salad and then there was these banana boat things? Of course marshmallows and candy bars were mixed in for good measure. I think they ate until close to 10:00 pm.





We needed to get up early to break camp and make it to the meet. This meet is unusual in that there are 3 courses. Easy, medium and hard. Even with three courses and splitting up the boys and the girls (so 6 races in all) there were still between 300 and 500 runners per race!



Jon has been fighting extreme back pain the second half of his races. Friday before we left we took him to a local gal in Amity who is a message therapist and she worked on his back. He has been doing extra core work to build his abs and back muscles. He is doing extra stretches for his back and trying NOT to sleep on his stomach. He went out at a moderate pace for this race to see how he felt. He had no back issues and finished in 2nd place in the small schools division! Jon faceplanted into a hill near the start of the race, hence the interesting coloring on his face and arms.



The kids had a blast. Cody was a great help and took a bunch of pictures for me.
All of the pictures can be found HERE



I know I don't have many more times like this to spend with this group of kids so I enjoyed every minute of it!
Glynn Jr.

Cross Country!!

Sorry for the lapse in posts. Cross Country season has started. I am helping out with coaching so free time is at a premium. Jon has had some back pain and still fighting nausea after races. We are trying different things and hopefully we will figure things out.
The kids wanted to do the "Trask Mountain Assault" this year. So we headed up in the hills a couple of Saturdays ago.
Below: Jon comes through the mud bog.


Team picture below. Note the bloodied knees!


The only way to get cleaned up nearby is the VERY cold stream that runs near the course.


Lorelei helped out with pictures and one of her pictures got published in the newspaper!
Below is Lorelei's picture that was published.


All of our pictures of this event can be seen HERE

We have a meet tomorrow, then one over at the coast on Saturday, then another one next Tuesday!

Glynn Jr.

September already....

So the end of summer vacation is at hand. Jon is running and his first meet is tomorrow night. A reporter for the Salem newspaper came out and did an interview with him and brought along a photographer. Kind of nice to see the bigger papers taking notice of his accomplishments. He has worked hard for four years, training almost year round.

Cody will be starting middle school next week! Wow how the time flies by. Last week Cody had some friends from church come over and they camped out up at the campsite. They had a blast. They cooked their own dinner and breakfast, picked blackberries made s'mores and were just boys. What fun they had.

Last Sunday Lorelei and I took the boat down to the river and went out for an afternoon of fishing and photography. I drove the boat and it gave Lorelei a chance to concentrate on photography and she got some cool shots!

Below a Great Blue Heron eyes our approach.




Below: Another interesting one she took.


Not to be outdone, I did manage to get an Osprey with his dinner.





Here's me looking serious trying to locate some more wildlife for Lorelei to photograph. According to her this IS a picture of some wildlife.





We didn't catch any fish but we had a great afternoon. Next week we kick off a new school year.

Glynn Jr.