Penguins at Havre Invite: LaBrie Takes Second, Green Runs in First Race

The Whitewater Penguins headed to the Havre Invitational on Saturday, September 14th to compete at Prairie Farms Golf Course. It was a nice, cool morning with a little bit of a breeze, so the conditions were great for running. We had four runners compete, Shelbi LaBrie and Sommer Green for high school, and Barrett Wasson and Henson Hellie for junior high. Tyler Scheffelmear could not compete due to some aches and pains; we are managing with rest.

The high school girls competed at 10:45 AM with 53 runners competing. Shelbi got two splits under seven minutes starting with a 6.51 mile and 6.34 on her second mile. She lost a bit of steam in the third mile with a 7.01. We're pretty happy with her time of 21.11, cutting 20 seconds off of last weeks time. Shelbi ended up in 2nd place in the girl's varsity race behind Chinook. Sommer Green had her first XC meet and first-ever 5k race! She had a goal of running the entire race with no walk breaks and she did amazing. Her first mile split was right where she wanted to be and fell off the next two but was able to finish strong. It's always exciting to see new runners go out and feel successful after their first race. Sommer ended with a time of 36.26.

My two junior high runners started their race at 11:30 AM. This was Henson's very first XC meet as well. He went into the race with not a whole lot of nerves and a ton of excitement. He started a little too fast, but that is to be expected. He came up to his first mile around eight minutes and thirty seconds. A great split! The last 800 of the race was difficult but he managed to finish with a time of 13.03 in 41st place out of 60 runners. Our goal for next week is to run a nice consistent pace that allows him to run without any breaks. Barrett Wasson was shooting for a 7:20 mile pace and fell a little short around 7:30, but we were happy with this as he is running this pace very consistently. He ended with a time of 11.54 in 23rd place.

We had a lot of firsts for the weekend so that made our trip a little more exciting. All of the kids had fun cheering on the new runners. We are excited to make our way to Lewistown this week, Friday, September 20th. This is one of the harder courses you can find in Montana and includes a TON of hills. It will be a battle of the minds for sure. So, we will probably be adjusting our pace goals accordingly. Good luck to all of our local teams and see you there!