Back at the Track

Not the horse races...track season started Monday and all 3 littles are running this season. I knew Hank wanted to run, but I was pleasantly surprised when both Ella and Shane jumped for joy at the idea.

We meet at a local high school and their teams get dibs on the football field/track. Lacrosse got rained out all last week so we got booted to the middle school parking lot for both practices this week.

The older kid (I don't remember his name) seems to dig Shane so the two of them run drills together. It's really cute to watch Shane try to keep up.

GO!

Shane kept looking over his shoulder at me while I took his picture until I told him to just RUN! Such a ham

We have almost twice as many kids this year which is pretty cool. Many of them are older but we do have a few new younger ones.

Coach Kevin giving Ella some pointers

What Ella lacks in speed she makes up for in guts. Other kids were groaning and walking on the hill drills. My little squirrel kept plugging away.

Hank moved up to the next age group so he'll be one of the youngest in his age group for meets.  He also wants to try the high jump this year. Should be interesting.

Standing around after the Relay of Death - down and up the really steep hill. They all 3 ended up on the same team, and they won. They had the really fast big kids on their team...and Shane and Ella ran as one so whichever of them reached the top first tagged the next runner (Ella by a mile).

Cheeseball with his buddy

It's nice to see most of our cross country friends again, and the kids are glad to get out and run around. My hope is that they continue to enjoy being active and outside. The coaches are both very good about encouraging the kids to do their best, but not screaming at them to win. The goal is to improve your time as the season progresses. 

It's also good to see my running friends again. They're running the Needwood 5 Miler on Saturday (I'll be ....volunteering....sigh) and they're training for the Frederick Half in early May. Things are still up in the air with my dumb leg, though I was able to run (slowly)/walk 3.5 miles on the treadmill this morning. Elevation changes make my knee hurt so I'm trying to be content on the TM, bike on the trainer (boring!!!) and do yoga (fun!).

I'm also loving my Neos so far. I don't feel like I've run far enough on different terrains to give them a solid review, but so far very good.