Track & Field

Today is my easy day only having my film class. The class is pretty nice so far although it's 3 hours long. The lectures are kinda boring actually and we usually watch a movie right after. My class starts at 1:30 so I got to sleep in and I started to study for the test later on. All of the professor's lectures were online so it was pretty easy to study for. But when I got to the classroom, apparently class was canceled for today. Another student next to me saw the sign and was like, "Couldn't he just use email?" Ha. But yeah that was a waste of time.

And I have noticed that my banner is really weak compared to other people's blog. I don't really have the patience or skill to make one so I'm stuck with the default ones.. yes that is my excuse for having such an ugly blog. Plus, I rarely take pictures let alone be in pictures so I don't put up many pictures either. But I recently dug up my track pictures and I put them up on facebook and I was thinking of blogging about my track experience or maybe one in particular since I could post up some pictures too. So here goes.

If you didn't know I did hurdling and long jump for the majority of my track and field career. I would say I was below average at both but never last Haha. Our school competed in the West Catholic Athletic League (WCAL) which was supposed to be one of the toughest leagues in California (hence why I was below average but no johns). I also did some 4x100 and 4x400 relays as well which were in my opinion the funnest events to do. I actually hated running the 400 but as I did it more it wasn't too bad. One race I remember clearly was the one against Riordan. I only have some bad pictures of the below. But on with the story!

So to set the stage, in one of the early meets in my senior year, I was the anchor leg for the 4x400 against Mitty. I was about 5 meters behind the guy ahead of me for the whole lap around and when we hit the last straight away, I was slowly catching up to him. I pretty much caught up to him and was at his side and it was kinda funny cause I remembered that if I swung my arm harder I advanced a little then he would advance a little bit and it went back and forth. It was like those over dramatic car races on tv. But I ended up losing and I was pretty mad.. but yeah. That was one of the best races I participated in until the Riordan meet. Fast forward to the end of the season. So the 4x400 race is always the last race of the meet so usually this event got the most attention. The race started and Riordan took the lead for the first lap but when Paul got the baton he was able to catch up and take the lead. Our second and third runners were the fastest 400 runners we had on our team and by the time I got the baton I had about a good 40 meter gap between the Riordan guy. I remember watching Jarret (third runner) run around the track and he had a crazy lead on his guy and the Riordan runner I was up against said something like, "Aw come on man. Now I gotta work." And for the record, this guy beat Jarret in the 800 meter race with a really low time. He was also pretty cut, about 6 something, and black. So when he said that I was so scared. My legs were shaking and when I got the baton I took it and ran for my life. I remember my coach saying, "Let's go Matt, make him work." I guess my coach knew that he was going to catch up so that added to the fear factor. I was always taught to sprint the first curve, ease up on the straight-away, then slowly speed up during the second curve and go all out on the last straight-away. So once I was past the halfway point, there were two of my teammates cheering and one said, "hurry he's catching up!" I was like what the- already!? So I started to speed up trying to save my energy. And right before the last straight-away, another teammate yelled, "RUN MATT!" And that's when I knew I should go all out. I didn't even think that he would catch up so fast and plus I didn't hear him or see his shadow coming up. The only reason I knew he was behind me was because everyone was jumping, screaming, and doing flips. My left ear was ringing after the race because my team was on the field and they were basically yelling right into my ear as I ran down. That straight-away was the longest 100 meters I ever ran. It was so scary. I was just hoping that I wouldn't see him and when I crossed the finish line, I was so relieved that I never saw his back. And then right after, I grabbed a basketball and dunked on him. Hahaha nah, he was by far the better runner but there's no "I" in "team" bahaha. After the race we had our usual Alma Mater chant/mosh pit and I had my glory. I remember I felt so happy as I was walking out with Kaeneth.. that was a good way to end track.

Well here's some pictures.. Wow this is a really long post, sorry

Mike was the first leg and he handed it off to Paul



Paul to Jarret



Jarret to me



Mitty pictures





I guess that Mitty guy felt the same way I did hahaha.