NYtimes article about california girl who crawls across finish, team wins championship

Agreed - kudos to the official who was sharp enough to not touch her or pull her off the course. Would have been very typical for an official to overreact.

20secs to go 2 yds? An experienced distance runner? Just imploded? Is any more known about this incident?

Geez if this is what do, I'm glad I'm not a coach of girl HS runners .

I've seen guys do this, too.

There was a dramatic finis hat the MAss. state meet a few years ago by a guy. He was in liek 10th or so and ended in liek 2nd to last because he had to crawl the last 50 meters or so.

Holy crap. I got teary eyed from that. Damn I'm getting soft.

+1

twoothfary wrote:

Holy crap. I got teary eyed from that. Damn I'm getting soft.

ABC wrote an article and did a clip on this as well.

Here's the video:

http://www.crosscountryexpress.com/2010/12/injured-high-school-track-star-crawls.html

Anybody remember when Andy Powell had to dive like 10 times to get 8th at Footlocker Regionals (back when the top 8 went to Nationals)?

I desperately needed that rep, gracious!

I'm going to remember that at least 10 times over the last few miles at my next marathon. That girl rules.

It doesn't mention it in the article but she was the team's #5 finisher.

Props to the girl, but how is it that SO MANY kids can't even finish 5k of running?

Thanks.

I feel like an idiot for taking your bait but they only have trouble finishing 5k because their pacing is off. If you are trying to push yourself to your limit it can be easy to push a little too hard and blow up. It happens to veteran athletes too, look at the race a couple years ago where solinsky came through 4600 meters sub 12 and finished in like 13:12.

Had Jim as a coach in HS. That girl showed everyone what kind of coach he has been over the years. Best I've had in 20yrs.

I used to be that guy. I used to be that guy who was all for crawling to the line if you need to. I now see it as ridiculous.

Seriously? A 16 year old girl is hunched over with what looks like some serious internal pain, collapses on the ground, and a guy gets in her face telling her she needs to crawl. This is ridiculous and medieval. What is more important, a high school cross country state title or the health of a 16 year old girl?

The girl is lucky she wasn't even 10 meters from the finish. I've seen some more serious cases. A kid from MA crawling 50 meters to the finish with people just watching? He wanted to "tough it out." Well, the truth is, the kid collapsed and couldn't finish. Somebody should have helped him.

This is the point where an adult needs to make an educated decision and think to themselves "hmm, maybe this person is in some serious danger. Maybe somebody should help them," opposed to just watching them crawl helplessly.

I already know the responses I'm going to get, so don't bother. We'll see what people say when one day a kid tries to crawl 100 meters on the ground at the end of a race, keels over and dies.

I saw this in person. She was their number one normally. She was a legit contender battling for the leat at 2.5 miles. She fell apart the last half mile and ENDED UP their 5ht runner. Very inspiring story.

It always amazes me when people label stupidity as inspiring. Running like that HURT her team. They would have done better if she had run intelligently, and running like a moron almost cost her team the title.

CalifornianWasThere wrote:

I saw this in person. She was their number one normally. She was a legit contender battling for the leat at 2.5 miles. She fell apart the last half mile and ENDED UP their 5ht runner. Very inspiring story.

Yes. I am so inspired that their number one was their number five. Awesome stuff. I am going to coach my athletes in order to mimic this type of performance. Alright kids, go out way too fast, die at the end, and crawl across the finish line in dramatic fashion. Then maybe we can get a newspaper article about us.