Emmy's Track and Field Day

A few weeks ago the 5th graders at Northside started practicing and getting ready for the district's annual 5th-grade Track and Field day. It's a really fun event and I've helped out the past two times my boys participated. I volunteered again this year to help out Northside's responsibility: high-jump. It's actually pretty fun! It also allowed me to be down on the field (of course, but other non-volunteer parents had to stay in the bleachers) and so I was able to watch Emmy up and close.

Emmy's gym teacher, the fabulous Mr. Warren, picks our 2 events for the kids. Then each kid chooses 2 more. Mr. Warren chose Emmy for the 1600M race - aka, the mile. Emmy was so nervous about this because she wanted to "place." (I think placing means you are in the top 6). Ben took her once to the HS track to practice the mile and she ran it in 7:47. Not too bad. Mr. Warren thought if she ran it in a 7s, she would have a good shot of placing. I took Emmy again a few days later and she ran it in 7:35. Faster, awesome. We had also been running getting ready for the GOTR 5K (which was the day after Track and Field day!) and so she had some distance-training as well.  :)

 The 1600M race is the first and only event happening at that time - so everyone can watch. There were 14 girls running the race (one girl isn't in this picture).

 Go, Emmy, go! Pacing is one of the biggest factors in running - especially for kids (Case in point: in the boys' 1600M, a few boys took off like it was the 50M dash! They were sooooo fast. Toooooo fast, in fact, that they pretty much all petered out and none of them were the top finishers. In fact, Emmy thought one of them was last.  :( ). Emmy took off fast, but not too fast. Just fast enough to be in the top-5 right off.

 I think this is the first lap. The girl in the tie-dye shirt is Emmy's good friend, Millie. Millie is super fast! She would have probably placed 1st or 2nd if she didn't end up barfing after 2 laps . . . :(  Millie had a great attitude afterwards ("I ate too much breakfast!") and ended up winning or placing high in her other sprinting events.

 She was looking great and was keeping up a really good pace!

 And there she is finishing SECOND! Yay! We were both so super excited! Emmy felt a little sick right after she ran, but within seconds she was doing just fine. Her final mile-run: 7:04! Wow! So awesome!

 Emmy also ran the hurdles. She loved it. She took first place in her heat and we're anxious to see how she did compared to all the other heats. She finds out Monday and is hoping for a top-6 finish so she can earn a ribbon. I'm not sure she will, but I'm crossing my fingers, too.

 I love this action shot of her! She's an adorable athlete.

 In the lead!

Peyton, Emmy, and Makala. On-and-off-again friends.  :) They were friends at that moment of time. An hour or so later I was talking to Peyton and she was upset because Makala wasn't friends with her anymore. I think that lasted about an hour . . . Silly girls.

I enjoyed my time at the high-jumps and so it was just another great track & field day!