Sasquatch, This is Not My Son

This Picture is with Daniel before the starter shown above shot off his cannon. 

On September 14, 2013, Daniel went down to Northern York to run in the Sasquatch 5K run. In this run, Daniel will compete in the 17 to 0 Division. The competitors started out in a corn field and run level for about one mile. Then they ran up a mountain and across the mountain ridge. 

Watch the video. Here you see Daniel coming down the mountain and back into the corn fields. He had about one mile to go. 

Do you see the man behind Daniel in black? This man is the cross country coach for Hershey High School. He was having a hard time keeping up with the Flash. As he passes, you may hear him say, "What have you been feeding this kid?"  Daniel ran away from the coach at the start of the race. Then the coach caught up with Daniel as Daniel ran up the mountain. In the picture above, you see Daniel running away from the coach as they ran down the mountain with one mile to go in the race. 

Daniel beat the Hershey School District coach. After the race the coach told me how well Daniel did. He offered one bit of constructive criticism. He thinks that Daniel should not start out as fast at the beginning of the race because he got tired going up the mountain. That strategy is fine if I was training him to run cross country locally. I expect Daniel to get conditioned to run up mountains like he is a well tuned automobile, just like the Africans. I expect him in the future to turn on his cruise control the entire race. So what the coach told me is that Daniel and I have some work to do.       

Last year, the Flash ran the race in 27 Minutes 59 Seconds. He was in the 17 year and under group. He finished 18th out of 29 in his age group and 102nd overall out of 279 runners. 

This year the course was changed to make the race harder to finish. Daniel ran it in 25 Minutes 48.04 Seconds. He finished 7th out of 21 in the 17 year and under group, defeating most of the teenagers running today. Overall, the Jamaican Flash came in 63rd out of 340 people.

Kathy Derr was at the race to cheer Daniel on. Kathy wore her shirt that she made with the word, "Jamaican" written on the back.  In the background is the Northern York Panther mascot.

At the end of the race, people came up to me telling me how well my son was doing. I had to explain many times that Daniel is not my son. I got tired of doing this and later got his mother Stephanie to talk for Daniel. One man asked if we had a professional trainer for Daniel. I said,  "Yea, me!" Many people were amazed at his ability to run this race. 

http://www.farmtrust.org/web/?page_id=106

You can learn more about this race on the Farm and Natural Land Trust Website. The results of this meet will be posted on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2013.