Well you could definitely say that ... it's definitely been a bit of a roller coaster ride in our house of late for lots of reasons, but I don't plan on sharing all here.
But, I will share a little about what happened last Friday.
It was the Southland Secondary School athletics champs and yep, N was competing.
I couldn't be at the track in the morning, but fronted up early afternoon, the programme was running late, so I thought that's okay, I get to see him in action in the relay and I did.
But before then, he had competed in the senior boy's shot put and he was runner up ... go N!!!!
Apparently he ran his 100m heat and when the qualifications went up, he had the second fastest time by quite some time and what I didn't know until last night was he completely eased up in his heat - he must have been smoking down the track.
But ... and there is a BIG but here ... he injured himself at the end of his race ... he pulled something in his groin. Now obviously I wasn't there, didn't see that ... when I got there he told me he had tweaked something quite badly and as he put it ... it was bloody sore ... coming from a 17 year old, the language was a wee tad stronger than that, but you get the picture just nicely, I'm sure.
He was resting between events. The 4x100 relay came up. He smoked the track again, running second runner for some reason - haven't see than before, him running second that is, well not since he was a whole lot younger. At the end of the straight, watching him hand-over that baton, well I was in tears ... he pulled up and he went down ... it was heartbreaking to watch and not a whole lot that I could do about it, I was in the stand watching the race. Now to see your lad go down like that was more than heartbreaking to be honest.
After what seemed like ages he struggled off the track and dropped again on the grass area inside the track ... he was down and he was down big time and for ages.
One of his mates came on the track, an official arrived, he hobbled off, could well have been something like 10-15 minutes later type thing. I mean he really was hobbling in between two of his mates. I caught up with him and went down to the St John's ambulance with him.
The ladies looked at him and looked at me and I knew that was the end of his competition for the day and it was.
He had painkillers, ice, he was rubbing deep heat ... but it obviously wasn't meant to be.
As we sat in the ambulance the call came over for the 200 metres heats ... he sat there, I stood there leaning on the doorway ... it wasn't pretty ... it was absolutely heartbreaking.
The two ladies from St John's were saying to him, there's always next year ... ummmmmmm ... nope ... this is his last year at high school.
He really wanted the 100 metres and 200 metres Southland Secondary School's senior boys title to take away with him.
He's the fittest he's ever been - he told me in his own words, that he was smoking the track and it was his day.
It wasn't meant to be.
Now the rules state that if you pull from an event from injury, you are then automatically pulled from all other events for the rest of the meeting ...
So by being a no-show in the 200 metres, there was no way he was going back on the track for the 100 metre final even if by some miracle he felt that he could have run, he also missed the discus and the 4x400 metres relay as well.
To say my lad was gutted would be a major understatement. To be sitting there hurting and gutted at the same time, wowser ... that was almost too much for me to bear to be honest.
It was downright cruel.
Sometimes it just plain sucks ... and last Friday was one of those days that he will remember for all the wrong reasons.
At the end of the day ... what could have been, just wasn't.
He walked away, well actually he probably stumbled more likely, knowing that he was runner up in the shot put and his relay team was second.
All still good in my book, but not what he wanted.
Shit happens.
Fast forward to today ... it was the Southland/Otago Secondary School athletics champs here in Invercargill. This afternoon he went down to the track to watch the 100 metres final and the 400 metres final.
I didn't think too much about it to be honest, thought it would be hard for him to watch. But sorta thought to myself, good on you for going down there.
He got back from the track a short time ago, waltzed in, I was in the kitchen, he muttered, Southland/Otago senior boys shot champ ... I still didn't take much notice and then, I looked at him and sorta said, what? Are you for real ? Yep ...
What I didn't know and what he didn't tell me was they had still entered him in the shot put this week dependant on his body ... he went away to the track in shorts, a singlet and jandals and came back as the shot put champ ... well bugger me ...
Unfortunately running is still out of the question ...
Congratulations young man ... love you, but you know that! and you will always be our champ!
Wowser, brought a tear to my eye just blogging this post.
On that note,
CYA
M