Sunday, February 7, 2010

Winter Wonderland of 2010

If you were in the NorthEast today and happened to look out your window some might have found you could not for a layer of white was covering it, or if you could you found that everything was covered in a thick blanket of white snow. Today Philadelphia got hit by a Noreastern that dumped possibly over 20 inches of snow. It is hard to tell the official amount since there was a strong wind causing great drifting. This is the second major snow storm that Philly has experienced in about two months. The first one was a total waste for me since I was stuck in bed the whole time having just gotten my wisdom teeth out.
The whole city was shut down from the snow storm. SEPTA was totally down by the end of the day, and no buses at all. Plows could barely keep up with the falling snow. Because of all this there were not many people out and about, which is truly a shame! Dad and I went for a run along Kelly Drive and it was amazing! The trees were just magnificent with the snow laying on them. I'm so glad that dad got me to go out for the run.
Ellie also enjoyed the snow today. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I think she is used to the fact that snow is cold now, but normally she is still able to walk in it. We got so much snow this time it was above her head in most places of the backyard. She looked quite confused by it all, but enjoying it none the less.
Hopefully another snowy run will happen tomorrow!

Aspiring Champions

So it is 2010 and time for a new year of training! With the new year my mom found this place called Aspiring Champions out at king of prussa. It is a pretty cool place! Founded and run by TWO time Olympian Antonio Davis (he went to both the Atlanta and Sidney olympics for track) in order to train young athletes who want to be the best of the best. At first I was a bit worried about it and whether I was actually good enough to be there. I have now gone to two classes and I will say they have kicked my butt!! I'm still hurting from Tuesdays class and just had my first Friday class. The workouts are around two hours for the premiere level (the highest level and the one I'm in). We have done a lot of agility and sprinting stuff so far In the two classes. The trainers are hard but I think that is a good thing! It is nice also to be training with other teens who are serious about getting good. So we shale see how I'm doing at the end of may! I sure am excited I really so want to kick butt at JWOC this year!!!!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Orienteering update!

So haven't posted an update in a while. A lot has happened as well. Where to begin is the question. Well we had a wonderful US championship in Wisconsin. It was very technical terrain with big crators and hard to relocate if you got lost. It was a place where the winner was the one who just messed up the least. I had a pretty good run after I got past the first two controls and got into the map. I have to say you get spoiled in international competitions when you get a warm up map inorder to get into the map before you even are on the clock.
I enjoyed this course a lot! You had to always be paying attention and focused. And although I felt slow my time wasn't horrible. I had a good enough run that I actually won the f- 20 age category!! That was a great feeling. I finally feel like I'm getting to really navigate at speed and more confident in my navigational skills. Also having so many of the senior team members saying well done and see they were impressed was awesome. A real confidance booster!
Next big thing has been my battle with Angelica in the DVOA rankings. We are less than 1.5 points apart from eachother. Each meet we both have been racing hard so the other one doesn't beat us. One event I got her by 12 seconds! And then funny thing is I didn't feel like I was having a good run. Then the next week at the mid Atlantic champs she got me by 5 seconds!!! Closing the gap. So one more event of the year with 1.3ish points between us. We shale see what happens...
Next exciting thing was at the mid Atlantic champs DVOA put together a killer junior relay team. Sam lead off putting us into 5th after the first leg. I was next. I was able to catch the second place runner by control one and just held on to the 1 and 2 runners for the rest of the loop. I then handed off to greg who brought it home! We won by 30 seconds but a win!!! So proud of my team :)
So one more local event of the year.

Wrote awhile ago i thought I posted but guess I did not. Ops!