KG's Hideaway

So yesterday morning we got up briiiiiiiight and early and headed down to Houston for the Southland Conference Indoor track meet. It's a four hour drive, and with it being a weekday we just didn't want to take any chances. Ryan's event wasn't scheduled to start until 3:30, but she told us she wanted to be there by 2. Taking NO CHANCES we left at 7:30 so that we could get to the University of Houston (making sure we knew where she had to be) and buy our tickets then we'd take Ryan to lunch (at Pei Wei- her fave) before going to to the University so she could take her time warming up. Her legs were killing her so we weren't expecting anything. In fact, less than 12 hours earlier (Thursday night) we were pretty sure that she wasn't even going to be allowed to do. Here's the story:

As I've mentioned three billion times before, Ryan's scholarship is for basketball so they control EVERYTHING regarding her. She isn't allowed to miss any basketball practices to do track. So everything was fine until the UTA women lost their game Wednesday night. The problem isn't so much that they lost as much as it is Coach Morrow being unhappy with how they played. Oh shit, that is going to mean lots of running. LOTS.

To top all of this off, they get their travel itinerary for the next game. They were scheduled to leave at 10am Friday morning to head to Lousiana for their next game. BUT, Coach Morrow found out that Louisianna had scheduled UTA's practice time (you get court time at the venue of every away game) to be 6pm on Friday night (the game will be Saturday). But Coach Morrow doesn't like them to have to practice that late the night before a game so she changes it so that the girls have practice at 10am Friday morning BEFORE THEY LEAVE!!! This really puts a monkey wrench in things for Ryan. The track team had left Thursday, but Ryan couldn't go with them because of Thursday's practice and we planned to take her Friday morning. Now, even THAT won't work in the schedule. But there is a slim chance Ryan can get what she wants... but it will cost her.

So Ryan goes into practice Thursday knowing its going to be brutal. According to her, "Brutal" is much too mild a word to adequately describe it. She said it was the worst practice all year. But she knew she had to work her ASS off and give it every single ounce of energy in her body. MAYBE if she did that, Coach would allow her to miss Friday's practice. (I want to clarify here that Coach isn't just trying to be a hardass. She needs Ryan at practice because they only have 10 girls if you include Ryan, so practicing with an odd number is more difficult and after all, Ryan IS there on a basketball scholarship so we're not bitching!) Anyhoo...

She approaches Coach Morrow after practice and tells her the deal. Coach tells her to try and find out if there is anything she can do to change her jump time (she can't, but it was worth asking) Craig picked Ryan up after practice and brought her home but we had to wait on the call to Coach Morrow. FINALLY, I guess about 7:30 Ryan said Coach Morrow told her she had worked her ass off at practice and it was noticed. She was going to let Ryan go to the meet but ONLY because this was the conference meet. If it was any other meet, she'd be SOL.

So, we get to Houston at noon, eat and head back to the track. We're way early but Ryan needed to try and get her legs massaged to see if there was any help for them. My ex-husband and his mom showed up so we all just sat and chatted until it was time for it to start. I have to admit I rather enjoyed talking with them and just having a nice day.

The event started and Ryan was ranked 3rd (because of the last track meet) so she was jumping 3rd to last. It didn't take too long to get through the girls but Ryan didn't enter at opening height, so she came in on the 2nd round. By that time there were already 8 girls out. She takes off for her first jump and it was clear from about the 5th step that it wasn't going to be good. (The picture quality is HORRIBLE... not sure what we did, but you still get the idea, I hope!)

... yeah. Probably THE ugliest jump I've ever seen from her. Period. Needless to say, she missed. I just got a really bad feeling all of a sudden. Pretty soon, she's up again. Takes off... better form, same miss. Sonofabitch! She's going to be MISERABLE if she "no heights" for the meet!

Oh Lord... this is going to be painful. It's clear that there just isn't any spring in her legs. They are dead. So, she takes off for her third (and final) attempt... I nearly threw up! I mean, I didn't need her to win or whatever, but I just wanted her to be happy with whatever results she got and I KNEW this wasn't going to make her happy. And as I exhaled... she cleared the bar!!! Yay! So at least she'd be on the board even if she didn't clear any other height.

Alright, you know the drill... the bar goes up how far??? (Altogether now!!) TWO INCHES!! And we're right back where we started. Missed the first attempt. Missed the second attempt (in fact, I don't even think her shoulders made it above the bar because she just couldn't jump... I mean, at ALL) But somehow finds the energy on her third attempt and clears the bar. Whew!

Yes, yes... two more inches. Now, it's just Ryan and three other girls left (the #1, #2 and #4 ranked girls in the conference- Ryan is #3) but Ryan has all those misses! One other girl had one miss along the way but the other two were perfect. It was clear that this was the end of the road for Ryan. I don't even know how she ran up to the bar for those last three jumps but she did. But missed them all. One of the other girls missed here, too so technically Ryan tied for 3rd but was awarded 4th by virtue of having missed more attempts. 4th place!!!

So 4th place in the NCAA Southland Conference track meet as a freshman (who isn't even there for track) doesn't seem so bad to me. She said she was disappointed that she didn't do better but she can honestly say she gave it everything she had. That makes me happy. If you do your best, then the resulting score or place isn't top priority (in my book, and I'm a hard core sports enthusiast. I don't like those kids sports where they don't keep score. The object of a game is TO WIN. Not "win at any cost" but to work hard, play fair and give your best effort. Hopefully that will propel you to vicotry, but if not you did your best any that's whats important)

So, we snapped a picture out in front of the facility and hopped in the car for the 4hr return drive. Only it wasn't a 4 hr drive coming home because...

.... it was 5:30pm. On a Friday. In downtown Houston. Ugh So we resorted to what we always do when traveling. Every summer we drive all over the country for Ryan's basketball (always twice a year to Atlanta, Memphis, Birmingham, Oklahoma City, Kansas, Chicago, and even Oregon... and we LOVE it but last summer was the last year they can play AAU or on the Nike and Adidas circuits if they have secured a scholarship so we didn't get to travel like that this summer...) Anyway, Craig has Sirius satellite radio, plus I brought my iPod and Monster cable and Ryan had her iPod so we turn up the music LOUD and we all sing at the top of our lungs. Oh yeah, Craig also plays the air drums... ALL THE WAY BACK TO FT. WORTH! It was a blast. We play everything from the Cars, Styx, Kansas, Neil Diamond, NSync, the Carpenters (LOL) and Disney songs (Ryan's favs). We're pathetic, but we have fun.

So, all in all, we're quite pleased! Happy weekend!