Alex's First Track Meet!

My sister and I signed our boys up for track this summer. I have never had a child participate in track and not being a runner myself (until sort of recently) I had no idea what it actually consisted of.
Well, last night was our baptism by fire, welcome to track & field, track meet!

Let me back up, when I approached Alex about it, he was less than thrilled, telling me "I get tired!" Well, yes. We all get tired when we run but I just went with, "Oh. Okay. Well, your Dad thinks you run really fast - like a gazelle - and you might do really well?" I could see the wheels turning in his head. "Oh, and did you know that if you run REALLY good and run on the track team in high school that you can get a SCHOLARSHIP for college? But you would need to start running now to figure out if you like it and if you're any good at it but if you don't want to, then....okay."

"I will do it!" he proclaimed.

Game on!

So they've been going to track for a couple of weeks and last night was our first track meet.

Here's my cute nephew Tyler. He took first in his heat but didn't end up placing in the top 5. 

Alex planned on doing the long jump and high jump.

"What, you're not running?" I asked.

"No."

"But I wanted to cheer and yell 'Run Alex run!'" 

"Mom you will just have to say 'Whoohooo Alex!'."

"Okay."

But when we got there he had to pick THREE events! He went with the long and high jump and the 400 meter! (One time all the way around the track.)

Here he is lining up:

Walking up to his starting line:

And here's a close up of that cute one eyed squint!

And crossing the finish line!

(He's in the white shirt - and yes in my excitement, I keep losing him in the frame. Hey! Give me a break. I'm an excited mom, not a videographer!) 

He came in 2nd in his heat and 4th over all.

Whoot!

Afterwards he was clutching his heart.

It made me sort of nervous.

I gave him water, and rubbed his back and Kammy had him do some deep breathing and he recovered just fine.

Later he told me he's never running that far again. He'll just do the 50 meter.

I think he thought he was going to die after that 400 meter. 

I told him he just needs to build his endurance and stamina. 

I didn't get any pictures of the other events because I would need some super duper zoom to get a decent picture across the field. (They don't allow parents on the field.)

The meet was long. 

Very long. 

We got there at 5 pm and went home at 8:30 and some events were still going strong!

We found out around 9 that Alex placed 4th - Kam was still there waiting for Brach's last event so she text the news to us.

Nope. That didn't change Alex's opinion about running a 400 meter again.

We stopped and picked up a pizza to celebrate.

(Which we figured was cheaper and yummier than the pizza they were selling at the track meet.)

Note to self: Bring a blanket - if not to sit on then to wrap around yourself when the sun goes down and bring something for the boys to do while waiting for hours on end for their event. Like a DS!

Well, see how next Tuesday's meet goes....