Meet 2

Five days after my first track meet, there was a second. This meet was more fun and less chaotic, in my opinion. There were about half the amount of people who went to this meet than to the last. Guess what that means…..NO CROWDED SCHOOL BUSES! There were only two to a seat, and no one was on the floor. YAY! While on the bus, Daisy and I decided to play card games. This was quite fun, and we surprisingly did not have the complications of the slipping, sliding, and falling cards until we were towards the end of the ride. 

We got to the meet, unloaded, and waited to see what we were going to run. This meet was set up differently than the last one. The first meet, everyone had to be registered in advance for what event they would be doing and that was the coaches job. At this meet, we could do up to four events, and choose whatever we wanted. I decided to do the one-hundred, two-hundred, four-hundred, and long jump. But it wasn’t as easy as that. I mean, I am super bad at making decisions, so it took me a while, and I still wasn’t sure if I was going to run some of those events for sure until it came time for them. 

The 100 was the first event, followed directly by long jump. Then I just hung out on the bleachers while waiting for the 400-hundred. This was the first time I had ever run the four-hundred at an actual race pace. I had run it as a slow jog, but never for time. This was the event I was debating about doing the most. I finally decided to run it when they announced the last call for the event. Last was the two hundred, which I knew I definitely was going to do. After that is was time to wrap up in a blanket, huddle with your teammates, and cheer everyone else on. 

Sunset at the end of the meet!

Meet 1

Today was my first track meet ever. I was not feeling very prepared because there have only been two weeks of practice, but, it went pretty well. It was Friday, so we still had school, but it was a super short day because there was a debate tournament at the school. When we got out of school at eleven-thirty, Daisy, Ali, Ansley and I went to El Chubasco for lunch. This place is amazing. (I seem to say that about every restaurant. I guess you could say I just love food.) 

After stuffing ourselves as much as we could without getting sick when we run, we walked over to the Maverick gas station. Ummm…why would we go to the gas station? None of us have cars….well, here is my explanation. I was freaking out because I didn’t have any gum so I convinced them to go to the gas station so I could buy gum. Yep. That happened. So while we were at the gas station, everyone else bought some candy to put in the food locker for school. Yes, we have a food locker, no, you cannot have the combination. 

Waiting for our first event to start.

From the gas station we walked back to the high school and got ready for the meet. We got back a little later than we had hoped, so while we were scrambling around for our uniforms, the team started to load onto the bus. By the time we were on the bus, it was totally full. Luckily, Daisy, Ansley and I found a seat, but Ali had to cram into a seat with two other unknown girls . Whoops. Sorry Ali. You may think, “Eh, that’s not bad”, but imagine a bus filled with seventy-two high school students (we happened to have exactly the maximum capacity allowed on the bus), with all of their school bags, and track bags. There were three students to a seat, and some people had to sit on the floor by the emergency exits. It was about a forty-five minute drive.

 We arrive at the track meet, and that is when the commotion escalates even more. No one has any idea what we are going to run, when each event is happening, where the coaches are, where we need to be, etc. It didn’t help that the upperclassman were not at this meet to help guide us through the chaos and cluelessness. 

Finally, the coaches return, and told us our events. I was told I was running the coed-sprint medley, and doing long jump, but I was still freaking out because I didn’t know what leg of the medley, if I was supposed to be somewhere for long jump, or if the two events ended up overlapping. It all worked out though, and I ended up running the first leg, the one-hundred, of the medley. Then I did long jump. Then of course, after the long day at the track, there was another cramped bus ride back to the high school. One meet down, thirteen to go!

Track and Time

Track is five days a week after school. As I mentioned earlier, I have no idea what I am doing, so today I decided to go with the sprinters. We warmed up inside, then went outside to the track. After running, we did some abs. I know this is weird, but I LOVE ABS. Anyways we had a plank competition. Everyone had to hold plank for thirty seconds, then it was a competition to see who could hold it the longest. I don’t mean to brag or anything…(cough, yes I do, cough)…but I won! I held plank for six minutes and fifty-four seconds. Being a gymnast definitely came in handy.

The rest of the week consisted of indian sprints, stairs, starts, mat runs, ankles, and more abs. On Thursday, I also decided to try hurdles. Hurdles are usually for tall people….but….wait for it…. I was not the shortest one there (I need a clapping emoji)! We didn’t actually jump over the hurdles, but we did a bunch of drills. There were about six of us who decided to try hurdles, and all of us were new to them. It was nice that I was not the only clueless one there.

Image courtesy of tmelero.com

Gymnastics took up twenty-four hours of my week. The rest of my time was spent going to school, doing homework, and sleeping. That’s about it. Now, about ten of those twenty-four hours a week are spent doing track. That leaves me with fourteen hours left. This leaves me plenty of time to do homework AND watch T.V.. WHAT IS THIS WORLD!? To blow your mind even more, on Friday, I was an actual teenager. If you are a gymnast, you know what it is like. You have VERY little social life. On this day, Ali, Daisy and I did not go to track because the honors chemistry placement test for next year was at the same time. When we finished the test, the three of us went to The Mine Bouldering Gym in Kimball Junction. After climbing for about an hour and a half, we walked over to Cafe Rio (I need the heart eyed emoji because it is delicious!). We ran into two other friends and the five of us ate dinner together. It was so fun! AND THEN to add to this day, my friend Jamie from gymnastics came to my house. We played board games, ate pizza, and watched Despicable Me in Spanish. I would say this was another successful week.

Day 1

So, now that I have so much time on my hands, I need something to do. It has been two weeks since I have quit, and so far all I have done is watch Netflix. Luckily, it was a break so I could get away with it. But now that break is over and school is starting again, that will not be happening. Sunday night before school, my mom and I were talking about school sports. So I texted my friend Daisy, and she told me she was doing track, and practice started sometime that week. I had nothing better to do so I thought I might as well try it out! Well, that wasn’t exactly my mind set. Even when I got to the high school I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to practice. Daisy and I convinced our friend Ali to go to track with us. Oh, I forgot to mention track was that Monday. So, as we walked into the high school, I was still trying to convince Daisy and Ali that we should just go to Ali’s house instead. But they convinced me to go. The coaches started talking, and I had no idea what they were talking about, so I just followed Daisy (who did cross country earlier in the year and knew what she was doing) and ended up going with the long distance runners. 

Daisy and I in our uniforms!

This may be kind of sad to some of you guys, but the most I have run before is three miles. This was also the last time I ran distance, period. And it happened to be in May. It is now February. Nine months ago. If you know anything about track, (which I don’t), you would know the longest distance you run is two miles. WRONG. Well, kind of. Yes, in meets, you only run two miles, but not in practice. The long distance coach begins telling us about our training schedule and goals for the year. Everyones goal is to run ten miles by the end of year. TEN MILES!? WHO RUNS TEN MILES? Not me. For sure. Ali and I look at each with the “ARE YOU CRAZY?” kind of look. Then I look over to Daisy, the experienced one, and she has the “no big deal” face on. Alright….looks like we are running ten miles today. Except that didn’t happen. THANK THE LORD! Ali and I ran four miles (which is the most I have ever run. Yes, I know. Hold the applause.) and everyone else ran eight miles. So I guess you could consider my first day of track a success.

Secret Sister

Recently, a handful of the Mini’s moved up to level six. They are ages seven through ten, and they are adorable. Our coach, Katy, decided we should have a bonding activity with the new level sixes to help them feel welcome to our workout group. So one day, she put all of our names into two buckets, one with the big girl’s names (that would be me), and the other with the little girl’s names. We each drew a name out of the appropriate bucket, but we were not allowed to tell anyone whose name we drew, except for Katy, who kept a file in her computer. This person whose name we drew was now our secret sister. Our job as a secret sister is to give a small gift, card, or some sort of encouragement to our secret sister. And, of course, we have to keep it a secret from everyone. Well, kind of. We have all shared within the two groups. The big girls shared with the big girls, and the little girls with the little girls. So whenever a big girl is setting up their gift for a little girl, the rest of us keep watch and make sure no little girls intrude to discover the secret. 

Having a secret sister is an ongoing process. It is fun to see the reaction of our teammates when they receive a gift, or how excited they are about an idea for their secret sister. The other day, I received my first gift from my secret sister. It was Valentine’s day, so she decorated a card, and gave me a water bottle filled with candy (sour patch watermelon, my favorite!). She wrapped it up and put it above my locker at the gym. It was adorable. 

The adorable card from my secret sister

This same day I also happened to give a gift to my secret sister. I gave her a Valentine’s day themed box of chocolates, and wrote a note. My group, the big girls, kept watch for any littles while I set up my present in my secret sister’s locker. The next day when I came to gym, my secret sister had a whiteboard setup on the outside of her locker saying “thank you s.s!” (we all sign our gifts “s.s” for secret sister, which reminds me of a funny story….) That note made me feel as good as receiving a gift of my own. I love having a secret sister to give to and receive something from. It helps remind me that someone is watching me and believes in me. 

So, time for the funny story I mentioned earlier. The first person to receive a secret sister gift was Patrisha. She is the youngest of the big girls, and gets to gym late because of school. So one day, she comes into the gym and asks me, “Do you know who’s initials are S.S.?”. I didn’t, so the two of us went through all of the names on our team, but no one had the initials S.S. I asked her why she was wondering and she told me there was a present and a card in her locker signed S.S. I told her I had no idea who it was from. Of course it never occurred to either of us that it was a secret sister gift. Duh! So about a week later in the car (we all carpool from school to gym) it had somehow come up in our conversation and one of the girls in the car said, “Um, I’m pretty sure it stands for secret sister…”. WOW. My team and I are pretty special. We had about a five minute laugh attack that day.

Meet Jitters

Today was my first competition of the season. Isn’t it a little late for season to start? Well, I have not been competing this year, and was not planning on competing at all, but at the last minute I decided to compete at this local meet. The meet today was in Lindon, Utah, about an hour away. It was a smaller meet, but it was nice to start off my season. But being the first meet, I had a lot of meet jitters. The night before I literally went to sleep at 8:45, knowing I would be awake super early. And I was right, I woke up at 5:30. On a Saturday. Because of this, I had seven hours until my meet. Seven hours for me to fret. Seven hours to freak myself out. The time dragged on. And on. And on. And on.

Post-Meet Dinner

So, after everyone competed, we went out to dinner. My team goes to this same meet every year, so we have continued a tradition. This was the fifth year in a row that after the meet my team and I went to Buca Di Beppo for dinner. Buca Di Beppo is a family size, Italian restaurant. It is flat out my favorite restaurant. Ever. I have so many memories there and the food is delicious. Other than the food itself, I love the ambiance of the restaurant. It is old fashioned with red carpet floors, red and white checkered table cloths, old black and white pictures all over the walls, and unique statues. There is something new to see everywhere you look. 

Image Courtesy of Hispanic Lifestyle

To split between eight girls, we ordered three pasta dishes and a salad. Now maybe you can imagine just how big the portions are. Eight teenage girls who just did gymnastics for about four hours...we were pretty hungry. We didn't even finish any of the pastas! Everything was delicious! This trip to Buca Di Beppo is so special to me, it was all I thought about the whole month before the meet, making sure everyone knew the plan. So concluding the day with the tradition of Buca Di Beppo with my team was something to distract myself throughout the day.

Full of Blocks of Foam

The dirty, pungent, itchy thing full of blocks of foam. You never know what is down there: socks, bandaids, food, and of course the dust, dirt, and dead skin. When you land, the contents fly into your nose, eyes and mouth. Yep, sounds delightful. It is like looking at a ball pit you played in as a child thinking, “Why in the world did I ever enjoy this? Nasty.”

But…..

The fluffy, injury free, life saving thing full of blocks of foam. Like landing in a cloud of comfort. You can land on your head over and over, and get right back up and try again like it never happened. 

For example...yes, this is me.

So, how can I be describing the same thing? What is this revolting yet glorious “thing”? Three words: the foam pit. 

Image courtesy of Firestorm

 The pit is the life-saver for all gymnasts. You can chuck almost any skill imaginable, and come out perfectly healthy. Well, other than the contents you inhaled when you landed. Truly, the worst outcome is getting stuck head first and needing your teammates to dig you out. 

But…after a certain amount of time, the foam blocks get packed down, calling for a fluffing. This means the whole team jumps in the pit and starts throwing all of the blocks out until you reach the bottom. The job of fluffing the pit fits my initial description: nasty. The pit is about eight feet deep and contains one thousand blocks, all of which must be taken out. As you get closer to the bottom, the grosser it gets, as the small items weave their way through to settle down there.

No matter how many points I make on how horrible the job of fluffing the pit is, I have to admit, I do enjoy it. It is a time where my teammates and I can talk about things other than gymnastics. We come up with games to play or blast the music and sing at the top of our lungs. Some of the younger girls try to build tunnels in the foam, and us older girls help them since we are pros from doing the same thing forever ago.

One activity we do to entertain ourselves while emptying the pit is to throw all of the blue blocks on one side of the pit, and black blocks to the opposite side. Then once the pit is empty, we push all of the blocks in, and the two colors of the pit are divided in half. 

Foam Art in 2010 (sorry its kind of blurry!)

During the process of putting the blocks back in, someone always ends up getting pushed in with the blocks, and sinks all the way to the bottom. It is always interesting to figure out a way of getting them out without getting stuck yourself. And when all of the blocks are put back in and we have finished admiring our masterpiece, everyone wants to jump in. We jump off the bar, or throw the little girls in just to have them get stuck again.

Another time we really enjoy the pit is during sleepovers at the gym. When you are younger, it is the first place everyone wants to sleep. Looking back to those past sleepovers, I still don’t understand how I could ever sleep in there. Maybe because it is warm and makes you feel safe when you are little? Well, maybe not, since there is always the rumor of the pit monster. It is also the go-to hiding spot for the little ones when we play night games. And of course you can use the pit and the area surrounding it to make an exceptional fort.

So overall, the pit is the best invention ever. It is life saving when you are doing skills, and a good time to bond with the team when it calls for a fluffing. So to whoever invented the pit, I give you a round of applause. You are a genius. 

It's a Gymnast Thing #2

Handstands. Handstands at the beach, handstands on a hike, and even handstands at a gas station. The signature mark of a gymnast. If you are a gymnast, you can’t help yourself. Everywhere you go have the urge to do a handstand, a flip, or something gymnastics related. And, of course, you must take a picture. If you were to look through my phone, about three-fourths of my pictures are handstands or flips. Which means you will now get to enjoy the journeys of my handstands.

This picture is the most recent and one of my favorite handstand pictures. It was in Hawaii during Thanksgiving break, and my mom and I went to a beach near our hotel to watch my uncle surf. In between waves, we spelled out the words ‘believe’ with pieces of lava rock we found on the beach.

These pictures were from this summer in Lake Erie. On this vacation, I did a lot of gymnastics on the beach, and of course took many pictures. I could not choose between these three pictures, so I decided to use them all. So, I have my backflip, side-ariel, and bridge on a paddle board.

This picture is from Running With Ed in the Spring. A few girls from my team formed ‘Flipping For Ed’. In between each leg of the race, there are rest stops, and at each one we took a handstand picture. This one is my favorite and is at the Utah Olympic Park.

In the winter, we went to California for a competition, and after the first night of seeing a gorgeous sunset over the ocean, I was dying to get a silhouette handstand picture in front of the sunset. So, the next night, two of my teammates and I took a bunch handstands and leap pictures. Jamie is on the left, I am in the middle, and Gen is on the right.

Also this winter, we went to Arizona for a competition. At our hotel, there was a huge fountain. My mom knows how much I love my handstand pictures, so she suggested to take some in front of the fountain. One night, we went after dinner and took some good pictures (the splits on the edge of the fountain), and the next day after my competition, we went and took some more in my competition leo (the bridge). 

This picture is from three years ago when my team went to Idaho for a competition. This is still a favorite picture of mine. These two teammates and I love photography, and during this trip we took many creative handstand pictures. We had just finished competing and were on our way to dinner, but took about an hour getting back to the car in what should have taken about ten minutes. We took some detours because we kept thinking of more pictures to take, and when our parents finally thought we were out of ideas and were about one minute away from the car, I came up with a great one. So I gave my mom the instructions on exactly how to take the picture, and we three girls ran into the parking garage. I took the first level, Sam R. the next, and Sam B. the third. We each made sure we were in front of the window, but next to the stairs so they were not in our way. We counted to three and did a handstand, hoping our parents got the picture from outside the parking garage. 

All of these pictures are just a few from my many handstands, and there is no doubt I will have many more handstand pictures in the future. 

It's a Gymnast Thing #1

Most girls get excited over new clothes or shoes and wait for compliments on how cute they look, but guess what gymnasts get excited over…thats right, new leotards! When you get a new leo, you walk into the gym with the same feeling you have when walking into school with a new shirt. You say hi to all of your teammates, and just wait for them to notice. And of course, they notice right away. I mean, you only have so many leos, and your team is with you five days a week year round, so they are bound to notice. The very first thing they say to you is “Is that a new leo?!”, and you reply, “Yes!”, and they reply, “Oh I love it!”. So even though we get excited over new leos for practice, there is one leo that makes us stop in our tracks. It makes you nervous and excited at the same time. This leo, is the competition leo.

A new competition leo is something you get only every two or three years, so it is a pretty big deal. Just yesterday, we received our new competition leo. It was the end of gym, and we were stretching when Joy, who works at the front desk, walked into the gym holding a bag with a hanger. Even though the contents of the bag were hidden, we recognized the shape of it. Immediately, we jumped up. After waiting for about three months, it had finally arrived. 

New Competition Leo

Our coach reluctantly let us have a look; knowing she wouldn’t be able to control our excitement. We all gushed over the leo, and went to try it on. “Oh, it looks so good!” The eight of us crowded into the bathroom to admire the design in the mirror. Some of the new recreational coaches walked by giving us odd looks; they had never experienced the arrival of the competition leo before. After taking in every detail, we ran into the gym and did handstands and back-handsprings to test the quality of the material. Finally, when we were satisfied, we took them home in wait for our first competition.

A Week Full of Pranks

On Friday of this week, it was our coach Bryce’s birthday. Bryce has only been coaching at the gym for a few months, but the team already has plenty of inside jokes and humorous moments with Bryce. He is twenty-four years old, is in the National Guard, and is super buff. For his birthday present, we decided to fill his locker with a bunch of objects. If you saw his locker, you would think we just threw a bunch of random objects in there, but every single one of them had meaning. The biggest object was a homemade diagram that had trees with bow ties on them, a plastic smurf and a plastic tiger. It also had some grass and rocks to make it look like a jungle. So, what in the world do trees with bow ties, a smurf, and a plastic tiger have to do with gymnastics? Well, I guess it really doesn’t, but let me explain a little. This whole scene was based off of a phrase Bryce said about one of my teammates. “She is like a wild tiger in a civilized jungle.” Well, that is not weird at all. The trees with bow ties represent the “civilized jungle” and the tiger represents my teammate. Now the smurf. Whenever my teammates or I say something comical or bizarre, he doesn’t smile, he smirks. So for the smirk we put a smurf in the scene. I am not sure how we came up with a smurf for a smirk, but it works. We also put in a candle, hair gel, a stopwatch and some other objects. I will spare you the time of explaining all of these.

We did this prank on Monday, since this was the best day for everyone to be able to participate. This was going to be our only prank, but then some of the other coaches spread a rumor that we were going to pull a prank on him everyday this week. Of course we had to take the opportunity.

Day two was not as good of a prank because we did not have time to prepare, so we just wrapped his locker with pre-wrap (something gymnasts use under athletic tape for injuries, or for headbands). Day three was a glitter attack. This story comes from the day our team did the ice bucket challenge. All of us wanted to get Bryce wet, but we never did. But after practice was over, on the way out, one of my teammates, Patrisha, snuck up on Bryce and covered him with glitter. So this prank was a re-creation of that moment. Our head coach Katy asked him to get something out of her car, so we hid outside by the door and as soon as he walked out, we threw glitter all over him. For the rest of the day, we kept finding paths of glitter throughout the gym, and Bryce had glitter all over him. The next day he came in he still had glitter behind his ears literally.

Prank number four was the best prank. When gym was over, Katy took Bryce to Maxwells with some other coaches for a birthday dinner. While they were gone, we decorated Bryce’s car with car paint. On the windows we wrote things like “just married” and “baby on board” and “off to Paris”. Remember, Bryce is twenty-four, in the National Guard, and super buff, so to have this written on his car is hysterical. We had some issues with this prank. Bryce must have heard about it, so he hid his car from us. We spent thirty minutes running around trying to find his car.

Just one window of his car.

The last prank was on Friday, Bryce’s actual birthday. At the end of practice, we brought out a cake for Bryce. But he couldn’t cut the cake, so we jokingly made fun of him by saying “are you not strong enough Bryce?” Finally we told him that the cake was a block of ice with frosting on top. Then we brought out real cupcakes for everyone to enjoy.

This week of pranks was very successful, but now we need to make sure we live up to the same standards next year!

My Team

According to Webster’s dictionary, the definition of teammate is “a fellow member of the team”. Since I spend more time each week with my team than I do with my family, this is not “deep” enough for my liking. I would consider my teammates to be more like sisters. Sometimes we drive each other insane, but we always have each others back.

At gymnastics, I train with levels six through ten, and we sometimes spend time with levels two through five, who are adorable. In level six through ten, there are nine of us total who are ages eleven through sixteen. We spend twenty-two and a half hours training together every week, but not even that is enough. We get together outside of the gym almost every weekend, and never get tired of each other. This weekend, Friday after practice we went to dinner and to see a movie, and Sunday we went to brunch.

Sunday Brunch

There is never a dull moment with my team. We all have our own unique personalities, and when you put us together, you never know what will happen. We can tell the same stories over and over again, and they never get old. Even the most boring thing you can possibly think of can be turned into a game or something enjoyable.

For me, traveling for competitions with my team is the most exciting thing. I absolutely love exploring a new place with my best friends by my side. I am stoked for this upcoming season, we are going to Colorado Springs, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona and Sacramento, California. At each of these competitions, we always have a team dinner, going somewhere interesting that seems to resemble the culture, or stereotypical culture, of each place. This year, two of the competitions have a gymnast after party, where everyone who has competed gets to hang out with their teammates and look like idiots together.

Besides all of the partying, there is the actual competition part of the meets, where the nerves are high and all of your hard work in the gym can pay off. I believe this is something that really brings the team closer together. We are competing with each other, as well as against each other. We have that passion to beat each other while still wanting our teammates to do their best. Even if I do not do too well, if my teammate rocks it, it brings my spirits up.

My teammates and I go through everything together, and have seen the best in each other as well as the worst. There are not enough words to describe the bond my teammates and I have, but if I had to come up with a new definition for “teammate”, it would be this: “an additional family member you can rely on to be your confidant, your cheerleader and your best friend”.