Nelson track finishes in 12th

Nelson County High track coach Kevin Walker gives a first-hand perspective on his team’s recent meets.

We went down to Hampton to run against all of the Group AAA powerhouse track programs in Virginia and a few private schools.

Most of these athletes compete in track and field year round with their high school and track club teams. We started the day off running the 4x200-meter relay. We were in the fastest section and I think that made our kids a little nervous at first.

The race didn’t go as we had hoped but we ran very well considering the long ride we had to get there. The relay finished ninth overall out of 18 teams. I think the kids were nervous because we hadn’t seen some of these teams during the year and they knew that these schools were good.

After that race, they calmed down and realized they could compete with these schools. Miguel Zarate and James Russell Ballowe ran the 1,600 meters in our next event. The race had about 15 athletes in it, which made James a little nervous. With an indoor race of that size, there is a lot of pushing for positioning at the beginning of the race.

Miguel got out of the traffic and James got tripped up in the first 60 meters of the race. Miguel stayed with the pack despite running on a strained quadricep, he ran his fastest indoor mile in 4:46.90. James tried to get back in the pack but struggled to remain calm during the race. I think it was good for the two of them to be in a good race.

The lesson they were able to learn was that many things could happen at the beginning or during the race but they have to stay patient and stick with their race plan to run efficiently. James put the 1,600 behind him and lined up to run the 3,200 later in the meet. He was running a great race the first mile but faded a little during the second mile due to a cramp. He is going to a great distance runner for Nelson County.

He lacks the experience Miguel has but they both are blessed to have each other to push each other at practice. As they continue to gain experience, they will be very competitive at the state level with Group AA and AAA schools. Both athletes have qualified to run the 5,000 meter run at the Nationals in March.

We finished up the meet with the boys 4x400 relay. We hadn’t run the mile relay all year and the team was a little nervous about how well it would run. I reassured them that they had trained for it, so go out and have fun.

Forrest Lipscomb led off the relay and got into a little trouble when a runner went down in front of him during the second lap. After the accident, he moved up to third place from fifth. He handed off to Rodrell Smith and he ran down the two runners in front of him. Londen Wheeler and Bird Vance both ran great legs.

We finished 12th overall in 3:38.

I think we should have run around 3:35 if Forrest didn’t get tripped up on the second lap. The guys showed a lot of heart to compete hard and they didn’t back down to the competition.

Last year, our best outdoor 4x400 team ran 3:37 at the state meet. We still have some things to work on for Nationals and nurse a few minor injuries in the next three weeks. The guys are looking forward to going to the National meet and representing their school and community in March.

After the National meet, we will turn our focus toward getting ready for the outdoor season. This group of kids is very hungry to get better each week and they want to compete with the best teams around. It is a pleasure to coach athletes that have goals for themselves and the team and they all will do whatever it takes to achieve those goals and make the team successful.

Nelson results

4x200: 1:35.57; 9th

4x400: 3:38.68, 12th

1,600: Miguel Zarate, 4:46.90 (new PR), 13th; James Ballowe, 4:56.49, 20th

300: Cody Hubbard, 42.86, 45th;, Clay Clarkson, 43.71, 46th

3,200: J. Ballowe, 10:38.87, 16th

500: William Brown, 1:21.48 (new PR), 42nd