Finishing First

The first track meet of the BYU indoor season was held at the Smith Fieldhouse today.

Brooke ran the 3000 M and finished in first place with a time of 10:27.

It was a great race.  Two of Brooke's teammates ran the first part of the race, pacing her.

Brooke lead the rest of the pack most of the race. 

As the two "rabbits", that's what the girls that were pacing her are called, 

dropped off, Brooke was still leading.

But as the gun went off to signal the last lap, another BYU girl passed her.

By the time the girls came around the turn, Brooke was trailing by about 5 yards, 

and it looked like the new leader was pulling away from Brooke.

Oh, yeah.  I forgot to tell you that the track at the Smith Fieldhouse isn't really spectator friendly 

since more that half of track is enclosed, you can only watch about 1/3 of the race.

There are no stands so friends, family and fans stand in the middle field or the inside of the track, 

to watch the race, or should I say, 1/3 of the race.

So back to the race... as they head to the enclosed part of the track, 

it appears that the other girl is pulling away from Brooke,

 and then they disappear and we are left to wonder.

We slowly walked over to the finish line, across the field,

 thinking that Brooke was in 2nd place and hoping that she could hold on to that spot,

when we hear a lot of cheering and hollering and I can hear someone say,

"It's Brooke!  Brooke is in first place!"

We ran over just in time to see Brooke sprinting to the finish line with about a 20 yard lead.

It must have been a great last 300 meters... too bad we couldn't see it.

But we didn't care.  It was more fun to have Brooke just tell us about it.

Many who were down on the track, teammates and coaches,

 said that it was the most exciting race of the day.    

Coach Shane was very, very happy about her race!

And so was her cousin and teammate, Stephanie, who was one of her "rabbits."

Thanks Steph!

I love this photo of Coach Shane and Brooke.

Like I said, he was very excited about her race.

This picture was taken the first time he came up to congratulate her.

He was so cute and looked so serious, almost emotional 

(kinda like Dad gets after a good race), looked her right in the eye

 and told her all the things that she did right in the race.

Then a few minutes later, he came back again

 and was so excited to tell her that he looked up the times for the race last year 

and that Brooke would have won that race too.

Brooke's cute friends from the dorms, came and watched her race.

After Brooke ran her cool down, we all went to Los Hermanos to celebrate!

I was so glad that I was in town and was able to watch Brooke's race.

The little girls thought it was great too.

And of course, Allie and Justin came to cheer her on to victory.

I called Dad and told him about the race.

He was at the church helping with the young men's basketball tournament

and could barely hear me but he must have heard enough

because he got kind of quiet and then said,

"You better not tell me anymore because I'm going to start crying right now

 because I'm so happy for Brooke.  

And I better not cry right now because everyone will think somethings wrong with me."

Gotta love that Dad of ours!

I wish he could have been here too!