Old, new and potential Raptors at Acorn BHS meet

Post date: Mar 10, 2013 2:44:56 AM

The "Acorn" used to be very popular and a huge, long meet but it has been dormant for a year or too. The season it was resurrected partly at the urging of BHS coach Brad Johnson (whom many Raptors know from his summer workouts at MLK). So I was expecting a small, quickly over meet. Ho-Ho! When I showed up the line twisted and snaked far, far back from the entry gate. There were so many people trying to get in that they had to delay the start of the meet to allow people to get in and run! All told, when everyone was inside I'd guess there were easily a thousand people on the field and in Berkeley High School's nice new (muli-million dollar) bleachers/stadium.

I'm going to have to apologize before the fact here that my memories of this meet are a bit incomplete and selective. Our track season started this week at MLK, complete with parent's meeting, etc. In short a busy week and when I sat down write this I was kind of blank since last weekend feels like about thirty years ago! So I'll do my best but there will be gaps!

First event for Raptor and MLK runners was the 1500. We had Riley, Shelby, Chaia and Emilie in the race. As almost always happens in these youth races, the pace was blistering right from the start but our girls hung in and Shelby did more than hang in. She PR'ed with a quite staggering 5:30 1500 meters, which translates to a 5:49 mile! Her time at the end was only three seconds off being considered a National Level Performance! And yes, Shelby is still eleven and still a 6th grader! Wow.

I super-sized this pic so you can see where Shelby is! The three runners in the foreground (Riley, Chaia and Emile from left) are FAST and Shelby is waaay up there ahead!

Behind Shelby came (I think! As I said this is sketchy) Riley and the Chaia and Emilie. Both Emile and Chaia set new 1500 PRs! Chaia's 5:47 translates to a 6:07 mile and Emilie's 6:01 to a 6:20.

This was all pretty great. Now it was off to the high jump. In the HJ, Emilie and new Raptor Olena battled for the win which was finally won by Emilie at (I think 4' 4"). Earlier, however Emile had caught fire in warmups nad cleared a new PR of 5' 5" and then came back a few jumps later and cleared 5' 6"! That, combined with her 1500 gave her two P.R's in one day!

Emilie shows off her new PR height.

Olena with Lili.

Olena jumping. Yeah, she is good!

Yes, we had yet another new Raptor at this meet. Zach, who is only nine and third grade came to his first meet (and the first time he'd met any of us in Raptors) and fearlessly did it all! He ran the 800, he long-jumped (I don't think he had ever seen a long-jump pit before, much less jumped), he ran the 100 and all just as calm and suave as can be. Watch for Zach. He is going to be a star.

Zach in the 800 meters. His first race ever.

Another prospective Raptor, Bernerbus, came and ran everything in sight. He ran the 100, the 800 and then claimed an excellent second place in the 300!

Bernerbus (grey shirt on right) takes off in the 100!

So, that the sum total of my memories of the meet. If anyone reading this has additional information you can edit this peice yourself (how cool is that? Just like Wikipedia!) or email me the info and I will update it.

And last but never least is 'Belle! She got a fine third in the LJ after uncorking a jump in warmups that would have won it! She also had a PR in the 1500! Her 6:24 translates to a 6:43 mile and makes her first forey under seven minutes. Great job, 'Belle!

'Belle flies in the 1500.