Nice email from Karen this week upon Brianna’s first week in Kindergarten:
I have to tell you a about a great experience from this past week. So I had asked Brianna if the kids asked about her legs, she said yes. So I asked her if she would like to give a little talk to her classmates explaining why her legs are the way they are, and she jumped on that idea. That night, she put together her ‘presentation’ – having me write down everything she wanted to say, the next day she went over it and practiced it, and on Thursday morning she gave her presentation.
It was amazing! She commanded the room with such poise and confidence. She wanted Allen and I there in case she forgot what she wanted to say, but she remembered it all. Then she fielded questions from her classmates, calling on the kids individually. At one point she even overruled her teacher (in a polite way). Most of the kids really didn’t have questions, they just wanted to share things about themselves or people in their family that used walkers (like their grandparents).
So the teacher was really trying to get them to focus and ask questions, it soon became apparent that there wasn’t going to be any real questions for Brianna to answer so the teacher was trying to wrap it up. But there were two kids with their hands still raised. So Brianna told her teacher to hold on, that there were 2 more kids with questions and then she went on to point at that those two kids to have their turn (and one of them actually had a question :).
Steve and Jack competed in the Dave Parsell’s triathlon as a relay with Steve taking on the 1/2 mile swim and 13mi bike and Jack finishing up with 5K run (results). They placed 4th out of 26 relays teams and first among two person teams, improving on their 6th place finish from 2012.
Steve finished 16th out of 353 competitors in the swimming portion of the race!
Jack ran 7:23/mi pace for his 5K leg in first race back since Marathon, improving his 5K time of 23:27 by a minute and 50 seconds over his 2012 run.
Jared successfully competed against 80+ other athletes for a slot on the 2013 Newton North varsity soccer roster. He was one of 5 underclassmen to make the 22 man squad. He’ll likely be spending a lot of time here while he brings back his rusty soccer skills, but he’s been getting a good amount of playing time in scrimmages (photos).
The team has its first game on Tuesday night in Walpole (72min from Cape) at 7:30. The full schedule is linked on the sports.priorfamily side bar.
Karen ran the 13.1 mile Columbus Half Marathon Sunday clocking a 2:04:25 (9:30/mile pace). She finished in the top half of her age group in her 2nd running race ever (results. She ran the first 6 miles at 9:53/mi pace and accelrated the last 7 averaging 9:02/mi, finishing the 2nd half of the race in under an hour.
From Karen:
Columbus Half Marathon in the books! 13.1 miles down, 13.1 more miles to go. I didn’t want to drag my family to the race, because that would be kinda cruel to get them out the door at 6 a.m. just to wait around for 2 hours, but let me tell – my little one carried me through those last couple of miles.
Competing against a field of 53 top jumpers from across the United States, Jared matched his 14th place incoming seed position with a lead-off 6.28m 20’7.25″ jump in the 15-16yo long jump at the USATF Junior Olympic Championships (results, photos).
He was the #2 jumper from the Northeast and 9th freshman. All the jumpers who beat him had 22+ foot PRs going into the meet. This was a tremendously deep meet with 24 jumpers exceeding 20 feet. Jared’s performance was quite good factoring in the headwind and the flat pit.
Nanny and Papa set a new Prior family record of driving 24 hours to see 24 seconds of competition.
This concluded a year of 24 long jump competitions for Jared.
The Newton tab included a long article Wednesday celebrating his representing the town in the meet (scan of newspaper, web):
Newton duo in Nationals Tour
Martin, Prior compete in Junior Olympics in N. Carolina
WALTHAM —
Starting this fall, Newton track and field athletes Clare Martin and Jared Prior will be competing on opposite sides of town as part of the Newton South and Newton North programs, respectively.
This week, however, both are representing the Waltham Youth Track Club at the Junior Olympic National Championship in Greensboro, N.C.
Martin, the recent Brown Middle School graduate who will be a freshman at South High this fall, will run the 1,500 in her first trip to Nationals as a track athlete after previously competing in cross country. Prior, who will be a sophomore at North, will be making his fourth appearance at a national meet, but his first with the WTC after previously going independently and with a contingent of North High teammates.
Both said during a practice at Waltham’s J. Lee Gould Track last week that they were taking high hopes with them to North Carolina.
Prior, who helped North to the Division 1 Eastern Mass. and All-States championships with his performance in the long jump this spring, was also eyeing a possible spot in the 15-16 boys national finals with a good jump after also taking first at the Region 1 final in New York.
“It’s a very deep meet,†he said. “There are a lot of jumpers doing much better than I am. I have started to really appreciate the importance of when I execute. That’s what I want to go down there and do. I’ve been fouling a lot of jumps, and to get in the finals down there I will need to have a big jump.â€
Prior joined the WTC last year at the urging of his older sister, Kayla, who was both a member of WTC and the All-State champion North girls track and field team a year ago.
“It helps a lot that she did it,†he said. “It’s pretty much why I’m here. Before I started doing track, she was nagging a lot that I should try track. So I started out at the middle school. Then when I realized I wanted to be serious about it, I started coming here when I got to the high school just to get the technical stuff down.
“I first jumped 20 feet in eighth grade. I thought that I did that without yet being super special in form. So I thought track was my sport.â€
…
The Newton athletes were two of the WTC’s 25 national qualifiers from the Region 1 meet. Newton’s Adrianna Batista, Orenna Brand, Max Hernandez and Rose Teszler also competed in New York.
The Junior Olympic Nationals began Monday and conclude on Sunday.
In the last running meet of his freshman season, Jared ran a personal best 11.41 FAT to win the 100m at the 2013 Bay State Games at Regis College on 7/13 against returning high schoolers. This 100m ranks 3rd in New England among freshman. His time was 0.64 faster than his junior win last year.
He also too 2nd in the long jump in 20′ 9.75″ and 2nd in the 200m in 23.08 — his fastest electronically timed 200m, and 2nd best ever. Both the LJ and 200m time rank ahead of all NE freshman. His long jump was 2 feet farther than his 2012 Bay State Games Junior Record jump last year.
Jared won the USATF Region 1 Junior Olympic 15-16yo Long Jump with a 21′ 1.5″ jump on Saturday at Icahn Stadium in New York City (results, video, photos). The meet consisted of athletes from New England and New York. The top 5 in each event from the 16 regions across the country advance to the Junior Olympic Nationals in Greensboro later this month.
He came into the meet seeded 2nd, but bested his nearest competition by nearly 2 feet. His 21′ 1.5″ mark is the 3rd best mark achieved in the Region 1 meet in the past 14 years. He was 5th in this meet last year (18’7.75″), and 2nd in 2011 as a 13-14yo (17′ 3.5″).
His last jump (a foul) measured at 21’11”:
Jared also ran the 400m in 52.93 for 6th in the 92 deg F heat:
Jared ran a personal best 11.2 in 100m (verified as 11.43FAT by video) for 2nd, jumped 20’9″ for 2nd, and won the 200m in 23.0 (23.18FAT by video) at Harvard this evening to qualify for these events for the Bay State Games on Saturday July 13th at Regis College in Weston (performance list). He is a top 3 seed in all three events.
Jared won the USATF New England Junior Olympic age 15-16 Long Jump competition at Fitchburg State with a 20′ 2″ jump (photos). Having the meet likely wrapped up after his 1st jump, he was aggressive in his subsequent jumps and got out to around the 22′ mark but fouled. 2nd place was 18’7″. He previous won this event two years ago in the 13-14yo division.
He also placed 2nd in the 400m in 52.14, coming on strong wit a reverse-split 25.8 final 200m, but lost by 0.03 (see video). He is in white in lane 4.
These performances qualify him to compete in the Northeast Region meet at Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island in New York. on Saturday July 6th (info packet), with the long jump going off at 11:30am and the 400m at 2:15pm. If he places top 5 at that meet, he advances to the National meet in Greensboro with long jump on Thursday July 25th at 1:30pm and 400m on Friday at 11am.
Jared earned perhaps the highest accolade in his track career thus far Friday, placing third in the 2013 New Balance Nationals Freshman Long Jump competition (results, photos, patch article).
He came in on paper tied as top seed, although the late entry of Grant Holloway from Virginia, the USA #1 track freshman in high jump(6’11”), 110m hurdles(14.45), and 300m hurdles (38.56), as well as the USA #3 400m (48.58), and (now) USA #9 in long jump (22’3″) made winning a long shot. Holloway is also indoor national frosh champ at 60m and 400m.
After having to abort his first jump mid-air due to officials yelling “stop” to exiting 100m runners nearly cutting him off, Jared rested just a moment and then opened with a 20’8″ jump. He held the meet record (for the new event 🙂 for 10 minutes until Holloway opened with a 22’0″ jump.
Jared kept Holloway on his toes, with Holloway’s 22′ jump being an inch outside Jared’s PR of 21’11” from the D1 state meet. Jared held 2nd until the final round when Tyson Spears from Roswell, Georgia jumped 21’1″. Jared countered with another 21’0″ jump on his final attempt.
Looking at Jared’s three previous National Championship competitions, he has improved 5 feet in last 3 years: 2011 USATF Youth Nationals — 16’0″ — 11th 2012 USATF Youth Nationals — 19’2″ — 6th
2013 New Balance Nationals — 21’0″ — 3rd
I extracted the New Balance clips and the audio and combined it with my videos of his 1st and 4th jump to make a highlight video. Use this link http://youtu.be/UeqfHviw0V8 if you want to share it.
Check it out:
There are also videos of his 2nd and 3rd attempt on runnerspace (clink on the links).
