Josh wins 3200m

If I was ever this late getting a story to press back in my newspaper days, I would have been fired on the spot. But since I am the publisher/sports editor of this "electronic rag," I can be late. I really thought I would wait until after last week's meet in Heath, but after Thursday's meet was cancelled before it ever got started due the rain, sleet and snow that hit the area I had to go to plan "b".

Anyway, Joshua's last meet was March 1st at the Clay Jones Relays here in Forney. Josh had a very good meet taking first place in the 3200m and fourth in the 1600m. Despite finishing first, he was not pleased with his performance as he ran his slowest time of the year at 10:38. "I didn't have any competition," Josh said after the run. My come back to him was, "That is when you have to really push yourself."

I thought his 1600m time was really good when you take into account that by the time the 1600m was run around 5 p.m., the wind was blowing very strong out of the south. Josh's time was 5:02. The winning time was 4:48.

Forney entered two varsity teams in the 4 x 400m and Josh was selected to run the anchor on the second team. He was not looking forward to it before the race for a couple of reasons. First, the 4 x 400m was the race right after the 1600m. The second reason, Josh is not a sprinter and in today's track world, the 400m is a sprint. Nevertheless, Josh shocked himself by running the fastest quarter he has ever ran at 0:59. I told him all he had to do was run that time eight times in a row and he would take the state title in the 3200m. He was not impressed.

This week they have two meets on the schedule. Friday they are scheduled to run at Greenville. The 3200m will start the running events at 3:00 and as with most meets, the 1600m is the next to last event of the meet which means he will probably be running around 6:00. Saturday, the team is scheduled to run at the Jesuit-Sheaner Relays in Dallas, but according to Josh today, he does not know if they are going or not. Apparently this meet is one of the premiere meets in the state with teams coming from all over the U.S. I saw a list of teams that have signed up and there really are two high schools from New York and two from Oklahoma.

Josh was told last week that Forney was not going to have anybody run the mile because they could not compete, but they would enter the 3200m. The winning time at last year's Jesuit meet in the 1600m was 4:21. Josh's fastest time in the 1600m this year is 5:00 which would have got him 19th place. The 3200m time is more in line with what Josh has the potential of getting. Last year's winning time was 9:35 which by the way was a kid from Forney who is on track scholarship this year at Sam Houston State. Josh's fastest 3200m this year of 10:23 would have got him 11th place last year.

It looks like the weather is going be nice this weekend so we are looking for some fast times.

Until next time...