Our N & M's: NLC Meet #2 // Round Robin

On Tuesday, September 12th, the Lady Tigers would host the second round robin for the NLC conference. I have to say that it was a beautiful night and the weather was perfect running weather. The girls were excited and ready to go, that's for sure. In fact, when I saw Marissa before the race began, she looked really serious and wasn't smiling. Because she hasn't felt well in recent weeks and is struggling with some medical issues, I was afraid that she wasn't doing very good but she came over to hug me and when I asked her how she was feeling, she said that in fact (thankfully), she was in the zone and really ready to just get the racing started.

Warm up and stretching before the NLC race begins...

...and then the team huddle, last minute instructions, and prayers.

And then final run-outs before.

At the start...

As soon as the girls passed us at the start, I turned to walk across the field to see them two separate times as they ran through the course.

Eden (from our team) is the first girl in this picture but you can see Marissa a couple of runners back. She was so frustrated when she passed by that first time because she was almost boxed in and couldn't stride out down the hill. She finally got to a place where she could run around them and break free from that pack.

And then just a short while later, Melayna passed me at the same spot as she headed towards the woods.

I'm so thankful for Moms who stand at different places throughout the course and also take pictures of my girls since we can't all be at all of the places.

The girls would pass me one more time and then I would turn and head back towards the finish line to watch the final stretch. Up to the 3k mark, the girls were both on track to run new PR's, but could they hold that same pace?

And then as Marissa ran down that final home stretch towards a 7th place finish and a brand new PR time of 19:55!! You can see the look of determination on her face as she fought for every single place on that race to the line. In this picture, there is a pretty good size gap between Marissa and her teammate, but by the time they crossed the finish line, there was less than a second between them. (Marissa was in tears after the race because she has wanted to get under 20 minutes for a really long time and finally hit that mark. Welcome to the "Sub 20 Club" Marissa. We are so proud of you!!

We were still celebrating a huge finish for Marissa when I noticed that Melayna was also running to the line well ahead of her previous times and positions. She would also run a great race and finish with a new PR of 23:45, getting under 24 minutes for the first time.