Track Meet

(thanks Nikki for the pictures...I can't believe I forgot my camera)

Well Saturday was our first experience with one of our kids participating in a track meet. Once a year in our school district the Rotary Club sponsors a big track meet between all the schools from grades 4-7. So Brooke's teacher was the coach and he placed the kids at her school into their selective groups. At the time he only thought it was between the 4th and 5th graders. With that being said he thought that Brooke should be placed in the highest group not knowing she would be competing against 6th and 7th graders.

Luckily Brooke was up for the challenge and she didn't have really any expectations. This was her first time ever running track and they only had 2 one hour practices. She decided to try the long jump. It was a lot of fun watching her try to figure it out. After the 3 jumps she was happy to make it in the middle of the pack. Next she ran the 50 yard dash...you should have seen her she looked like such a baby. The girls she raced against were ALL as tall as me...crazy. She was awesome though she made it to the finals and then came in third overall. I was so proud of her she held her own. I probably would have been too intimidated to even try. Her last race was the 800 or the half mile. I though that this would be Brookes best race. Any kind of distance is right up her alley. She ran 3 miles the other day and I don't even think she broke a sweat. Anyway she ran an incredible race and took first place by at least a quarter lap. Most of you that know Brooke know that she is really shy and doesn't necessarily like to be the center of attention. It was so fun to see her cute dimples shining through as she came across the finish line as her entire school was chanting her name (she was so embarrassed) and I was so proud of her. Our school had a couple of relay teams and one of the girls didn't show up. So the girls on the relay team were scrounging around to find someone to replace her. They finally found a girl. but she only had flip flops on. Brooke was nice enough to let her borrow her shoes so the girls would still be able to race. 10 minutes later a girl from the second relay team got sick so they were frantically trying to find someone to replace her. So they begged Brooke to be their anchor and of course she said yes. One little problem now she didn't have any shoes...so off went my shoes and I quickly put them on Brooke tied them really tight so they wouldn't fall off and they left to line up for the race. Pour Brooke was wearing shoes that were 2 to3 sizes to big and had never even practiced doing a relay. She was a good sport and they came in fourth place not bad seeing how first and second were taken by the Junior Highs.

All in all it was a very fun day. However it reminded me why my kids don't run track. Brooke and I got to the field at 8am and we didn't get home until 6pm. It was a very long 10 hour day we were both exhausted, but very left happy.