State track

Today I drove a car full of girls down to the Iowa middle school girls state track meet in Ankeny, just one in a caravan of cars from Osage. Spring track meets in Iowa (or tennis, or golf, or trap shoot meets for that matter) are an interesting game for the spectator as well as athlete, because you just never know what kind of weather you’re going to be sitting in. Today was cold (started in the mid-30’s, “warmed” up into the 40’s in the afternoon) and windy (20 to 30 mph). So along came the sleeping bags, hats, mittens and winter coats. But at least it wasn’t raining, a rare thing this spring, and the sun was out. Except nobody was thinking sunscreen or lip balm this time of year and after 10 hours in a set of west-facing bleachers we all looked rather pink.

So though there were (many) portions of it that were long and rather boring (like 6 heats of the 1500), it was still fun to watch the girls compete at this level and I was glad I went. Despite only getting in 2.5 meets around the rain so far this spring they did all right. There was some tough competition!

Madeline ran first leg of the shuttle hurdle relay, 400 (last) leg of the sprint medley, and anchored the 4 x 400.

Here she is coming over the first hurdle (in the middle in the green & the black under armour). She just ran this race in a meet for the first time last Thursday, so I was a little nervous about it. But their team placed 4th overall in this event in the small schools division, so I guess I worried for nothing (as usual, I guess.)

She likes to run the 7 flight hurdles. And yet it seems to me like she’s got a distance runner’s build. But what do I know?

Just last week she started running the mile, and got 2nd in last Thursday’s track meet – only 10 seconds off the 7th grade girls school record. So she’s excited to work at improving her time this week and gunning for that record 🙂

3 years ago:

Quilt squares