Finch Makes Second Straight Trip To State
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
Placing in the top 15 in last week's Manchester Semistate was not the hard part for Warsaw cross country runner Jennifer Finch.
No, the hard part came after Finch placed 12th with a time of 14:38 to seal her state invitation.
As she was celebrating, she jumped to hug a friend. As she jumped, she got a charley horse and strained her left calf muscle.
"I had someone try to massage it out," she says, "but they said it was as hard as the ground."
She lived with the strained calf for another three days until Wednesday, when she "bladed it."
Hillary Barlow knows all about blading, and Finch immediately has her sympathy.
"You bladed it?" Barlow asks incredulously.
Turns out blading is nothing new to runners. Barlow, a Warsaw senior cross country member whose season is finished but is one of the few girls practicing with Finch, knows about blading.
"It's this metal blade with blunt edges they use to break up scar tissue," Barlow says.
"It hurts," Finch says, "a lot."
Warsaw coach Paul Sibray says blading "reforms the muscles, makes it more loose. The scar tissue pulls together."
Once the 16-year-old Finch, a junior, gets past her leg problem, she must prepare to run on a course unlike any she's seen this season.
Northern Indiana does not feature the hills that Bloomington has, and Finch likes flat sprinters' courses, not hilly courses.
But Finch enters the race familiar with the course as Warsaw's team advanced to last year's state finals and placed 13th. This year Warsaw placed ninth at the semistate, and only Finch advanced.
Asked what she remembers about the course, she answers, "That it was hard."
Finch gets to run on a flat course for maybe the first 200 feet, but after that, she can forget it.
"Once you get started," Barlow says, "the course is almost continous hills."
Each week Warsaw's cross country team practices running on hills. "When we want to work on big hills," Sibray says, "we go to Winona Lake."
Last year Finch placed 91st overall at the state meet with a time of 16:06 and was third on Warsaw's team, behind Barlow (56th, 15:40) and Summer Boyd (60th, 15:44). The hills were not the only difficulties Finch remembers.
"Last year the heat and dust caused problems," says Finch, who has asthma, "and I dropped my inhaler."
"Yeah, and I stepped on it," Barlow says. Competitors with asthma may carry inhalers, but if they drop them, no one else is allowed to help them by picking it up.
Finch, who says her ideal running conditions are "50 or 60 degrees, cool and drizzling," plans to attack the course differently this year.
"I will probably change a little," she says. "I will go out harder and work the hills more."
She hopes to move up at least 41 places so she can finish in the top 50.
"I want to get in the top 50 and under 15:30," she says.
Says Sibray: "It's a great opportunity to do it again. Experience is the best teacher. The experience of being there last year helped a lot, because she knows what to expect. She's a lot more relaxed this year." [[In-content Ad]]
Placing in the top 15 in last week's Manchester Semistate was not the hard part for Warsaw cross country runner Jennifer Finch.
No, the hard part came after Finch placed 12th with a time of 14:38 to seal her state invitation.
As she was celebrating, she jumped to hug a friend. As she jumped, she got a charley horse and strained her left calf muscle.
"I had someone try to massage it out," she says, "but they said it was as hard as the ground."
She lived with the strained calf for another three days until Wednesday, when she "bladed it."
Hillary Barlow knows all about blading, and Finch immediately has her sympathy.
"You bladed it?" Barlow asks incredulously.
Turns out blading is nothing new to runners. Barlow, a Warsaw senior cross country member whose season is finished but is one of the few girls practicing with Finch, knows about blading.
"It's this metal blade with blunt edges they use to break up scar tissue," Barlow says.
"It hurts," Finch says, "a lot."
Warsaw coach Paul Sibray says blading "reforms the muscles, makes it more loose. The scar tissue pulls together."
Once the 16-year-old Finch, a junior, gets past her leg problem, she must prepare to run on a course unlike any she's seen this season.
Northern Indiana does not feature the hills that Bloomington has, and Finch likes flat sprinters' courses, not hilly courses.
But Finch enters the race familiar with the course as Warsaw's team advanced to last year's state finals and placed 13th. This year Warsaw placed ninth at the semistate, and only Finch advanced.
Asked what she remembers about the course, she answers, "That it was hard."
Finch gets to run on a flat course for maybe the first 200 feet, but after that, she can forget it.
"Once you get started," Barlow says, "the course is almost continous hills."
Each week Warsaw's cross country team practices running on hills. "When we want to work on big hills," Sibray says, "we go to Winona Lake."
Last year Finch placed 91st overall at the state meet with a time of 16:06 and was third on Warsaw's team, behind Barlow (56th, 15:40) and Summer Boyd (60th, 15:44). The hills were not the only difficulties Finch remembers.
"Last year the heat and dust caused problems," says Finch, who has asthma, "and I dropped my inhaler."
"Yeah, and I stepped on it," Barlow says. Competitors with asthma may carry inhalers, but if they drop them, no one else is allowed to help them by picking it up.
Finch, who says her ideal running conditions are "50 or 60 degrees, cool and drizzling," plans to attack the course differently this year.
"I will probably change a little," she says. "I will go out harder and work the hills more."
She hopes to move up at least 41 places so she can finish in the top 50.
"I want to get in the top 50 and under 15:30," she says.
Says Sibray: "It's a great opportunity to do it again. Experience is the best teacher. The experience of being there last year helped a lot, because she knows what to expect. She's a lot more relaxed this year." [[In-content Ad]]