Cross Country Season Has Begun!!!

Last weekend Richard and I had the pleasure of driving to Yamhill to watch Jake participate in the Trask Mountain Assault, is that not the most awesome name for a cross country event?? Anyway, this was his second competition for the season and it is NOT an easy one. It was full of hills, mud pits to slog through, muddy slopes to go up and muddy slopes to slide down. As hard as it is, Jake really loves running this race. It is exciting to be there, the energy coming off these athletes is eleectric as you can see from the start of the race below, there are SO many runners and though I know Jake is in there somewhere I have not been able to pick him out yet.



This race is run at the 3 Rock Ranch, which used to be the Flying M Ranch. There were so many schools there that we almost missed Jake running. We wandered for a long time looking for Glencoe, but could not find their camp. We had no idea what time the race started and had just decided to head home since Richard had been paged while we were on our way. We were almost to the parking lot when we found Diane Rasmussen heading in, she told us Varsity was about to start so we thought we'd just try to find him in the race. We spotted him midway through the race as they doubled back by the starting line. He had bright green tape on his shoes and around his head so he was easy to spot later. He finished strong!



OK, so here comes the emotional mother part, so if you are averse to this kind of thing and want to skip down to the next photo, you are encouraged to do so, I promise it will not hurt my feelings. Boy after boy was coming in for the finish and Richard and I were there at the end watching for Jake. My thoughts raced from excitement at watching Jake come in, to fear that he was out there somewhere hurt or struggling. Every runner we saw was covered in mud to some degree, so the irrational mother in me was starting to worry about my son. Would he be ok? Could he do it? I knew he could, after all he ran this same course last year. But I worried anyway. I watched and worried and thought about my Jake and what a wonderful man he is growing up to be. I thought about how proud I am of him and how amazed I am that he is working so hard at improving himself. Then the bright green headband came into view(for Richard, not me, my eyesight is not as clear as his) and I turned on the camera and caught his strong finish. Just look at him, isn't he fabulous!!!
So, as you may be able to see, Jake was covered in mud. I jokingly said, "how about a hug for your mom!" And that's just what I got! My first reaction was to cringe, I have a thing about being covered in dirt, its just yucky. In fact I believe my exact words were, "this is so against everything I believe in" but then I thought about it and realized what Jake had just done, and pride won out against the ickiness. I realized it was an honor for me to hug my filthy sweaty wonderful son! I wore that mud with pride and still have some on my purse, I may just leave it there for a while. I am so blessed to have the children I have. I thank my Heavenly Father every day for allowing me the honor of raising them. Each and every one of them is so dear to me and I am grateful at how they are all developing into such fine people, despite my shortcomings as a mother.

I am also grateful for my husband who had other things to do that day. I was going to go alone and thought the map looked pretty easy to follow. At the last minute Richard came along and I am so glad he did, I never would have made it, the roads out that far are not marked at all and I would probably STILL be wandering the backroads of Yamhill county today had he not decided to be my chauffer! Thanks honey, I love you!!