Days with the Dorans

  Memorial Day has equaled the Bayshore 10k for us lately and it was great to be back at it! Personally I was NOT looking so forward to running because I'm still dealing with the nonsense of covid! I ran better than I thought- gave myself permission to walk and just listen to my body. Imagine my SHOCK when the leaders started coming back and I saw JOEY IN THE TOP TEN!!!! I couldn't believe it and that definitely fueled me some!! At that point I was texting and running but I didn't care. I was SO excited for our boy! Joey ended up finishing SEVENTH OVERALL!!! And this is a big race! It's a BQ for the marathoners and those wanting to do the olympics too! As I posted out- Joe came in 7th (I did not!)  You can see video I took of Joe on the course and video Jeff got at the finish HERE ! Below are just some fun photos to remember this AWESOME day!!

  So Joe did have ONE last Meet (county or conference- I don't even remember). Jeff was on Sean duty and I was cleared from Covid so Ali and I were able to go and cheer on Joe one last time (sob!!!). He did well as he always does and I was so proud of him! It's funny how he grew to love running so much! I know he's really going to miss it! We were just talking about how things seemed to reverse for Joe. He started out loving band and then not so much senior year and he started out not liking running (even at all) and ended up falling in love with it. Life is funny like that! Goes to show you just never know and it's good to stick with things! Here are some pictures we took at that final run! My Runners.

The City Meet is always a fun one! I usually recognize runners from the other WL schools and they run under the lights at WLC! So when I tested positive for Covid, I was PISSED! I had a feeling that one of my students (who can't keep her mask up and who I work very closely with each day) gave it to me. I had like 7 kids out and one girl was still there and awful at masking! Her family was positive too but for some reason they sent her to school- and here I was. Ali got Covid too (but not from me and I didn't get it from her) so she couldn't run either. Such a bummer! Like I mentioned, the City Meet is a fun one and there was tailgating and fun and I was left out and missed my baby's LAST City Meet. I think I may have cried. So Jeff had direction to facetime with me during Joe's races so I could watch him which was cool and I was screaming into my phone as if I were there! It felt good to sit up and watch Joe! Thank God for technology!! And because I wasn't there...

  Ali was SOOO excited to find out that she was invited to run in a Varsity Meet. Of course Joey was there too and then left at the end of school so I had to join them later! Joey has been running so well! He now has a sub 5 mile but... I MISSED HIS RACE! I was so bummed! I literally got there to watch him cross the finish line. Thankfully Nana and Papa taped it (which you can see below... kind of). I am so proud of him! I love watching my kids run!! I did get to see Ali run (like HOURS later). It was so cold that we would go to the bathroom just to warm up our hands with the dryer. We also went and sat in the car for a while until it was closer to the time she ran. Since Joe drove separate. He left so he could go play music with dad! Ali and I tried to get to Pontiac in time to watch them play but we missed it! Thankfully, Joe set up a video HERE so we could watch it later! I did have one drink since we were already there. It was nice catching up with Dave and others.

  How much do I love that these two run? A lot. How much do I love that these two are friends? A lot. Ali in the 200 Joe in the 1600 (mile) The Girls- Took this off their Instagram Page!

We were SO excited for States so piled into the car for the trek to Brooklyn, Michigan.  It was PACKED and we weren't sure where we were going but we dropped Joe off and he got with his team in plenty of time.  We found out that some of the boys had gotten into a car accident on the way but thankfully no one was hurt but it sure did rattle the nerves. The girls team also was at states which was cool. The girls ran first so I watched them kind of but it was hard to tell where to go to actually see the runners. There were so many fans that you really had to squeeze in. The good news was that there was a live tracker so I could see Joe's pace at one mile, two... etc. and I could see that he was setting himself up for a PR! Nana and Papa were there, the Doran cousins, TZ and Uncle Dan and of course all of us were there too! It was so exciting! Near the end Jeff got a video of Joey running and he had a bit of a kick putting him ahead of some of the runners! And he did get that PR!!...