Melayna had her last regular indoor qualifier meet on Saturday morning. She was on the roster to run in the fastest heat of the 60 meter hurdles right at 9:00 a.m. and then she would also anchor the 4x400 relay at the very end of the meet. Since Morgan was home for the weekend, she came along with me to cheer Melayna on.
She is in the orange and black standing back a bit in lane #2. She would run in the 5th and final heat of the hurdles so she had to wait for a while for all of the others to run.
And then it was finally her turn.
She ended up finishing in 9th place overall with a new SB time of 10.41... just slightly faster than last week.
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As soon as the boys and girls had finished running the hurdle events, Morgan and I had to run back home and get ready for a bridal shower for my niece. Although we were excited to celebrate Amslie's upcoming wedding, that meant that we would miss Melayna running in the 4x400 relay. She said that she ran another 1:04.1 in the anchor leg and that it was neck and neck all the way through to the finish, where the competitor lunged and fell over the line for the victory and Melayna and her team took a very close 2nd place. She said that everyone was cheering and yelling and that she was fighting so hard for the win. Unfortunately, it just wasn't to be this time.
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In exciting news... Melayna was chosen to run the 400 split of the DMR relay next weekend at the indoor state finals down at the fairgrounds, so we are all very excited for her about that!!
Noel and Melayna were up and out of the house by 6;00 on Saturday morning as they both had to catch the team bus and head up to Indiana Tech for the second official HSR meet of the season. On the schedule that I received, Melayna would run in the 60 meter hurdles at 9:35. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get to Indiana Tech and I remembered that parking was a problem last year, so I left around 8:00 thinking that I had plenty of time. Well, it's a good thing that I left "early" because the schedule was incorrect and Melayna was actually scheduled to run her first event at 9:05 - a full 30 minutes earlier!! As I paid and walked through the doors, I could see that they were almost finished with the 3200 and the hurdlers were already checking in and taking their first run-outs.
Melayna would run in the fourth heat (out of five) and she is running in lane #5 in the bright orange jersey.
At the finish of the race, I could tell that she had finished 2nd in her heat, but there wasn't any way to know her time quite yet. After the fifth and final heat was finished, I would log on to mile split and we saw that she tied for 8th place overall with a final time of 10.47. (When they rounded to the nearest thousandth, she fell officially into 9th place), but Melayna was happy with her time. Especially since she didn't three step any of the hurdles.
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Melayna would run again in the very last event of the day.... the 4x4 relay. She hasn't ever been able to run in the "A" relay because there are several girls faster than her, but our normal relay team was out East at the National indoor meet so the sprint coach asked if Melayna could be the second leg and she was definitely excited about that!
After the first runner was coming around on her second lap, Melayna took her lane and got ready to go. When she received the baton, they were in third place, but she had a better hand-off than the second place team so she was able to quickly overtake them.
When she came through after the first 200, she was in a solid 2nd place but she was slowly closing the gap on the first place runner.
As they were running down the backstretch, you could see the distance between them getting smaller and smaller with every step that Laynie took and she finally came even as they rounded the final curve. Melayna can have a really strong kick at the end of her races and she was finally able to pass the leader just as they were going to the exchange.
Unfortunately, I think Melayna was coming in stronger than her own teammate anticipated and so she didn't take off fast enough on the exchange and so despite being in first place right before the exchange, the hand-off definitely slowed our momentum and the team in white quickly passed our third runner as they were going into the curve and they held on to that lead through the finish of the race. We would finish in 2nd place in that heat and drop all the way down to 6th on the day. Melayna had another great leg however and finished with a new PR of 1:04.01 -- especially great considering this is an inside track and the curves were pretty tight.
Melayna said that she had to quickly sit down as soon as she handed off the baton because she was seeing stars at this point. She jokingly said that she doesn't remember breathing on the entire last lap!! LOL
Melayna will compete in one final indoor meet this coming Saturday and then outdoor season will begin. It's sure going to be an exciting year!!
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Edited to add this picture, which was posted to instagram a couple of days after the meet. Gotta love the look of concentration on Laynie's face...
Melayna competed in her first "official" HSR event of her senior indoor season. It was held at Indiana Wesleyan University on Friday night. (Unfortunately we weren't able to see Marissa while we were there because she was still up in Elkhart at the National swimming event).
Morgan was still home on her spring break, so she rode down to IWU with me and we got there in time to watch the boys finish up the last laps of the 3200 and then Melayna would run in the 60 meter hurdle event. She was in the first heat and in lane #1.
It was such a beautiful afternoon. 'Would have been a good night to run outdoors, actually.
'Over in lane #1 - getting her blocks lined up and set.
And then practicing a couple of run outs.
There were five heats of the hurdles and she would finish in 7th place overall with a time of 10.52. She said that there were a couple of things that she knew she could improve on, but she was pretty happy with the time overall.
My apologies... I think I took these pictures in the .5 mode as they really look distorted. I didn't mean to do you dirty like that! LOL
As soon as she came over after her race, we gave her hugs and congratulations and then Morgan and I left the meet and headed back home.
What a beautiful sunset as we were heading back to the car!
"Unofficial" indoor track season kicked off this past Saturday for Melayna as she ran in the first "Tiger Invite" of 2026. This meet wasn't recognized as an official IHSAA event as it was more of a fundraiser for our track team but it was also a fun way for our coaches and officials to run through all of the events and to allow the participating runners to see where their times are as they enter a new indoor season.
Melayna signed up to run in the 60 hurdles and then the 200. I wouldn't be able to watch Melayna run in her 200 race because it was scheduled for later in the afternoon when Nolan would be at his orchestra competition, but thankfully since her hurdle event was scheduled to start at 9:30, I was able to stop by and watch her compete in the hurdles. (So thankful that as her coach, Noel is always there for all of her events and can support her, even when I need to be somewhere else).
Unfortunately, it all just felt "off" right from the beginning of their warm-up runs. Several of the girls were catching their spikes on the carpet and stumbling on their practice runs or they had to stop because of other fans and runners walking right into their lanes. You could see the frustration on Melayna's face as she was trying to warm up and had to keep stopping.
Then, despite the fact that the starter gun was working perfectly before the meet, it suddenly stopped connecting to the speaker and so the meet was delayed for over 15 minutes so the official could get everything connected and ready to go again. By this point, all of the hurdlers had been held at the start for quite some time.
Then it was Melayna's turn to compete as she would run in the third and final heat.
Thankfully she would stay upright and didn't fall, but she said that she came out of the blocks wrong right from the beginning and then everything was just wrong after that. She did make up ground at the finish and would finish third in her heat but she would finish with a time of 10.5. You can bet that she wasn't happy with that run at all!
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After her race, she would stop and talk to "Coach Howett" about the run. He does a great job of reminding his runners that it's one race...and now the race is over so don't dwell on it. Watch video and learn from your mistakes. Then move on to the next one. And really, it's the first full run through that Melayna has done this early in the season...and after two crazy weeks of cancelled or delayed school and cancelled practices. There is a lot of time left in this season and she's only getting started. I think she was discouraged when the race was over, but she seemed to be feeling better about it by the time she got home later in the day.
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Melayna would also run the 200 later in the afternoon and would later say that it was also "too slow" and that she didn't go out hard enough. Again, there are lessons to be learned from this meet and hopefully she will make a few improvements before the official season begins at the end of the month.
I still can't believe that it's her senior track season already. Where does the time go?
