Hershey Track Meet

Last night, Alyssa was in a district track and field meet. She told me about a year ago that track and field was the sport that she liked best, and that she wanted to run in competitions. There aren't too many opportunities for kids her age to join a track and field team/club, and that is kind of how she got involved with gymnastics last fall. She has loved gymnastics a lot, and I think even if she never pursues competitions in gymnastics it will have helped prepare her for any future sports she might like to compete in.
 Anyway, when she had the opportunity to compete here, she was sooo excited! She brought home the sign up form one week before the event, which didn't leave her much time to prepare, but she learned so much just from the chance to get out there and run some races.

She has a November birthday, and with school cut off dates being Sep. 1st, this typically makes her one of the oldest kids in her class {and I think this has often worked to her advantage}. I imagine many other sports are like this as well, but here they use the calendar year as the cut off dates, so even though she is 10 right now, because she will turn 11 before the end of the year, she ran in the 11 and 12 year old age group. She was quite a bit smaller than the rest of the kids :-)


 




















She chose to compete in the long jump. I wasn't at the meet because I had to teach at church, but looking at these photos I could tell she took a very gymnast like approach to the long jump.


 She also chose to run the 800m and 400m. She likes the longer distances. Dave said that in the 800 she was keeping up pretty well with the 1st place runner until the end of the race when the girl who was in 3rd sprinted right past her to take 2nd place. Alyssa ended up 3rd. She seems very motivated to practice now. She told me that once we get home from Pennsylvania she is "going into training."


 There is a hint of a smile on her face in this photo that you can kind of see if you click on it. I wish I enjoyed running that much!

Alyssa's events were all towards the end of the night, and she had a fun time cheering on friends throughout the meet. When I got home from church she was so excited about her ribbons and to tell me that one of her classmates at school won 1st place in the softball throw. It was fun to see her that excited!