States

This weekend I had the privilege of traveling to the state cross country meet at Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia. 

This wasn't my first time at Great Meadow.  

The first time was back in the 1800s 1990s for the Gold Cup--a steeplechase.  

A steeplechase involves horses. Like the Kentucky Derby only with jumps and other obstacles, in this case very hilly terrain. I am very curious to know why they call it a steeplechase (and why people riding horses might be chasing steeples) but am too tired to investigate at the time of this writing, particularly since this is not about a horse race.

It's about humans racing on a horse track in a meet called States.

My beautiful daughter Maria ran in Saturday's steeplechase state cross country meet.

She ran the fastest she's run all year and shaved more than a minute off her personal best.

I am an insane fan just ask anyone around that day
insanely proud of her and the whole team.

The boys and the girls placed fourth out of twelve teams that went to the state meet.

I spent hours yesterday uploading photos to my other blog for parents and others who may know the runners.

Any day now this blog will return to photos of Mathews County, but in the meantime congratulations to the Mathews High cross country runners and their phenomenal Coach Greve.

What a great season.