Joey Chmelik had a great senior season, qualifying and running in the state cross country race. Joey was the only Viking to qualify for the state cross country meet this year.
We had a beautiful day for running at the lovely St. Olaf College campus on Saturday, November 2, 2013. The race started at 2 p.m. with 175 runners lined up at the start. The race goes out fast and some struggle to even cross the finish line as they have put everything they have out on the course. Viking runner, senior Joey Chmelik’s plan was to go out in the middle, try to hang on and most importantly, have fun.
Joey met his goal of making it to state for his senior year and he was excited. Joey went out in the middle for the first 200 meters but then settled back over the next 1,000 meters.
Eventually, he started to move forward but ran a slower time than normal. He finished 157th with a time of 18:58. He knew his time was slower and he knew that he didn’t hang on quite long enough. However, he finished with a smile on his face and stated that he enjoyed every minute.
The winning team of the single A state meet was Perham. They had four runners in the top 10. That was impressive, especially at a high level of competition. The winner was Hurley Keeghan from Perham with a time of 15:36. Our local section teams, Crosby-Ironton finished 9th and Proctor finished 12 place over all out of 16 teams.
It was a fun way to end the season and was followed by many runners taking part in the Witch Hazel Run the next morning at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Results for that race can be found at www.raceberryjam.com/2013/witchhazel. html.
We will be looking forward to again working with many of these runners during the track and field season which will begin on Monday, March 10.
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