Mat's First Track Meet!

So Mat had his first Track meet this weekend at UNLV! Mom and I drove down for the weekend and had a blast and the meet was overall a big success! It was BEAUTIFUL weather until about 5:00 when it got pretty windy and freezing... but mom and I got a nice tan (or burn) in the earlier hours of the day. Mat's sister Samantha (who lives in Vegas) came and hung out with us all day too! It was really fun to have her there and spend some time with her.

His team drove down Friday morning and had practice that evening at the field. On one of his throws he threw kind of side armed and messed up his bicep. They had the trainers workin on him that night and the next day, but it was still killing him when it came time to throw on Saturday. So they wrapped him up as best they could and sent him out to throw. He ended up placing 7th and making the finals. However, between Mat, the coaches, and the trainer, the decision was made for him to just scratch for the finals since he was hurting so bad and since he still had discus to throw. So he still scored for the team and did really well despite his hurting bicep.

As all track meets seem to, the meet got a bit behind. He threw Javelin about 2 hours later than scheduled and by the time discus came around they were about 3 hours behind and it was pretty dark. Since UNLV's track is slightly... um, ghetto... they had no lights and were considering canceling the discus event. After a bit they decided that instead of canceling, they were going to give each athlete 1 warm up throw and 1 competition throw and cancel the finals. So they only got 1 throw instead of the usual 3, and no finals. Kind of crazy, but Mat ended up doing really well and placed 7th in discuss too! Lucky number seven I guess. So he made both finals but didn't get to throw in either of them.

We all had a lot of fun and felt good about how he did. Coaches were pleased and it felt good for Mat to get his first meet under his belt. After all, it has been 15 years since his last track meet, so its good to have the first one over with. He will only get better!! Their next meet is the first weekend in April at BYU!