Bragging, cont'd.

Natalie's third track meet of the season yesterday was a success! Two more PR's for her. She shaved two seconds off her 1600m time, running a smart (i.e. negative splits) 6:43. She continued a steady pattern of running exactly one second faster per week in the 800 (3:13 yesterday, 3:14 last week, 3:15 the first meet). This was on a dirt track, as opposed to her first meet (and previous mile PR) on a rubberized asphalt track. Middle school track season up here is short (only 5 meets), so there's one more regular season meet next week, followed by the District meet. It looks like she'll make it to Districts.

I think I managed to light a bit of a fire under her. I went to the track myself last week to run a mile time-trial. Being unconditioned myself (not a slight to Natalie's times...I just used to be quite a bit faster), I knew I'd run somewhere in the neighborhood of what she's currently running. I managed a 6:42. Yesterday, she came within one second of that time. She hasn't admitted it, but I KNOW she wants to beat her old man. If she does, I'll have to see if I can give her more incentive. Maybe I'll run an 800 to give her something else to shoot for (assuming my old injuries don't take me down first). Unless I can make a full comeback to running, I'll be seeing nothing but the bottoms of her shoes before too long.