Summer Track with High Five Flyers

 Summer track is a fun program.  The kids all enjoy the competition and have fun at practices.  This year they did the track meets a little differently, in an attempt to help them run smoother and not go on forever I assume.  So not every age group could choose all events each meet.  Each kid could choose two events, one in the first half and one in the second half.  This forced Dylan to step out of his regular 100, 200, long jump events.  He ended up trying the 400.  That is a hard race!  But he didn't back down from the challenge and wanted to try it again on the Championship meet even though he could choose whichever events he wanted.  

These pictures were from the first track meet.  He was still 12 at this time so he was racing against 11-12 year olds I think.  But it was hilarious how far ahead he was.

Kaden was a bit hot and cold about track.  It took some time for him to not complain about his warmup laps around the track at practice.  He didn't always know where he was supposed to go.  And on the first track meet I must've signed him up for one thing and forgot because I thought he was in the 200 but he wasn't. So he missed whatever else I signed him up for.  But he hated waiting in line to do the long jump.  And it was freezing that day.  And it was a longer meet, not as organized as what I mentioned earlier.  Later, he found out he was being placed against 7-8 year olds so he had no chance of winning anything and he was pretty bummed about that the rest of the season.  He tried javelin.

Sadie has never really won any of her events.  She still enjoys it, but she's been frustrated.  At practice every week she is always going with the distance coaches. With this format with the meets this year, I convinced her to try 800.  I thought she could probably do well in a longer distance race because most younger kids don't do longer races.  It took some persuading but she decided to try 800.  And she did so awesome!  With the longer races, they put a lot of people on the track at a time because they end up spaced out after the first lap.  So she was racing against boys too.  She hung out at the front the whole time and only got passed by one boy.  I was so impressed!

Dylan tied for fourth on his first attempt at 400.

I don't have results from all the meets, only the ones in Madison because they reported them to athletic.net.  So here is the second meet: 

Kaden 200 44.4,  javelin 23'8"

Sadie 800 3:26 first place, Long jump 8'5" fourth place

Dylan 100 13.6 first place, 400 1:16.9 tied for fourth

The championship meet was long and hot.  It was a bit of a rough day.  Kaden came in dead last in his 200 and he was super discouraged.  Up until this point he was usually in the middle of the pack.  So he kept whining to me about how unfair it is that he has to race against 8 year olds.  And he just wanted to be done.

Sadie didn't place very high in the 200, and when she did the long jump, she faulted but the teenagers that were measuring her didn't tell her.  I saw that she had stepped over the line, but I didn't know she didn't know.  She assumed her line was the second line.  So after faulting on ALL THREE jumps, she didn't get a final score.  And she was super upset because of it, and I was super upset that the volunteers were not smart enough to understand that maybe after the second fault, they should explain to her that she's doing it wrong.  Grrrrrr.  Sadie felt like she had done really well and might've gotten a medal too.  So she was teary and upset before her 800 started and just wanted to go home.  

So I have Sadie and Kaden both teary and upset.  And Dylan is running back and forth, going to pick up his medals and drop them off and get in line for long jump, etc.  He was in good spirits, even though he took third in everything.  Still a medal!  And he was shocked that they timed him at 12.6 for the 100.  And shocked that he was still only third.  That was a big PR for him.

Kaden was asking me to check with the javelin to see if he got a medal (I assumed he wouldn't when he's going against much older kids).  And I had watched his long jump and he wasn't anything crazy.  So I was trying to console him and explain that he still did really well.  We were walking back to watch Dylan long jump when Dylan saw us and called, "Kaden, you got a medal in long jump! They called your name so I grabbed it for you."  He had already set it by our stuff so we rushed over there to look and it was a FIRST PLACE MEDAL!  Kaden's face was priceless.  Such relief and happiness and emotion.  It was the best.  In my head I was wondering how on earth, but who am I to burst anyone's bubble. 

And finally it was time for the 800 and Sadie was sure she wasn't going to do that well and she was in a bad mood.  Did I mention how stinking hot it was??  Sooooo hot.  Sadie lined up with all the other girls and boys in both her age group and the one younger than her.  And she killed it!  I think two boys finished ahead of her, but that's it.  She was amazing.  First place medal for her!!

Look how happy they are sporting their medals!

Final scores for the championship meet:

Dylan 100 12.6 for third, 400 1:07.01 for third, and long jump 14'3.5" for third
Sadie 800 3:11.34 for first, 200 39.06 for 9th, long jump she faulted each time 
Kaden 200 46.12, jav 22'4", long jump 12'7.5"

Okay, let me just say there's no way Kaden jumped that far.  Someone messed up.  BUT that being said, I wasn't going to take away that moment from him because he was sooooo ecstatic to have that medal around his neck.  And the whole day he kept saying, "I can't believe I beat the 7 and 8 year olds."  He still doesn't know it was a mistake.  Maybe someday I'll tell him.  When he's much older.  We decided next year he was going to skip track and do golf instead.  He can jump back in track when it's a more fair competition.