Summary:
We begin at track team practice with Honoka and Yasu watching and Suzuka not happy about Yamato's decision. He decides to try the 100m sprint, but first, they must have drills. Yamato suffers through those, getting used to the workload. During this time, we meet our first new character in a while, Miki Hashiba, a freshman sprinter. The team continues with spring drills and no breaks. At the end of day, Miki talks about how dedicated Suzuka is to doing her best. Honoka and Yasu come to get Yamato and end up basically carrying him out. Yamato's respect for Suzuka grows by seeing what she goes through and how she is willing to do extra practice on top of that. Practices continue over the next week with Honoka watching each day. Yasu jokes that since she spends so much time there, maybe she should join team. Honoka tries to convince herself that she could, but little kids outrun her and she gets winded really fast. She is determined though to stay close to Yamato, thinking aloud about her crush on him since that day at the shrine. She is overheard by Saotome, who tries to convince her she shouldn't give up on Yamato.
Saotome also tells her that Yamato confessed to Suzuka and got rejected. After running into Yamato, Honoka mentions she might join track team, and in fact does join as manager. Yasu is amused by turn of events. After another day of practice, Miki complements on Yamato about his hard work. Suzuka picks at him, but as he walks off, Miki tells her she should not tear him down all the time and try to complement him, because he is really trying hard. Suzuka is getting so upset about things, it's affecting her performance at vaulting. While she sits thinking about some of the things she did with Yamato, a smile appears on her face... then she remembers the confession...

--------------------

New character ahoy! We meet Miki, a member of the track team previously only seen in the closing credits. We don't get a lot of background on her, but she is apparently a close friend of Suzuka's. As a sprinter, we can expect she'll have a lot of character interaction with Yamato, since that is his talent as well. Just based on first impressions, she seems a more flirty individual... well, maybe not flirty so much as agressive. She reminds me a bit of ... well, I'm chagrined to admit this, but she reminds me of Sailor Jupiter. Same hairstyle, good at athletic activity, same kind of personality (well, maybe not so much violence). I don't see Yamato and her making the triangle into a quadrilateral, but I guess time will tell.

Suzuka is having all sorts of reactions to Yamato. At times, she's mad at him for joining the team, but it's more than that - she seems to have a lot of different emotions flowing through her with the entire situation. As to it affecting her performance, I'm not sure what the resolution for that is. Obviously, the anime is nowhere close to ending, so the resolution can't be to get together with Yamato. Somehow, she's going to have to reach a balance she can live with. Her picking on Yamato was kind of unexpected, but not so much that it was unreasonable. Yasu's points about becoming a stalker seem right on the money - Yamato will have to learn the difference between an interest in someone and stalking them, although to be fair, Yasu points out that most times, the stalker doesn't know any better.

I was really surprised that Honoka joined the track team as manager. I mean, the way it was done made sense, but I didn't see that little bit coming. In this episode, she has a hard time making her manager duties work out with trying to keep together with Yamato, as in several amusing scenes, she is needed by other members when she tries to do simple things like give him a towel. In the end, it is closer than she would have been outside the track team, but not as close as she wants to be. On top of that, one of the track members seems to be interested in her.

A lot of good interaction on the track team and an interesting mix of personalities. As always, we'll have to see where this leads...