Cross Country Elementary School Race

On Saturday, September 24th, Washington County held its annual Elementary Schools Cross-Country Race for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. This was Landon's first year to be able to do this race and he was pumped!! Here he is right before the start giving me his best "running pose!"

We had gone the evening before to practice the race course at Eastern Elementary. He ran it twice and wanted to do it a third time but we thought he had better save some juice for the next morning. Landon definitely has some great endurance!! He ended up doing really well and finished the race in 5:15, coming in 23rd place out of 155 runners in his age and gender group. 

Here he is picking up his ribbon for placing in the top 30!!

He was pretty excited!!

Here are the 3rd Grade Boys top 30 for 2016!! Landon told me that next year he wants to place in the top 15 so he can earn a medal. He would have some work to do, but I think with some good training, he could do it!

Here is his name in the paper the next day...

Here is Abby before the start of the Girls 5th Grade Race with all the girls running from Paramount Elementary. Abby was really excited about doing this race but had also put a lot of pressure on herself since she had finished in the top 30 the previous two years. Unfortunately this was not a good race for her as she battled stomach cramps for much of the race. She still managed to fight to the end and finished in 37th place out of 121 girls!

The next day we talked about some important lessons that she could take away from this experience. The first one is that she didn't train as much for this race as she had the previous two races which is one of the reasons she probably didn't do as well. If you want something in life, you have to work for it. The second lesson is that sometimes there are things that come up (like stomach cramps) and you have no control over it no matter how much you work and train. The most you can do is keep plugging along and finish the course, never giving up. 

I'm proud of both of my little runners! It's been fun to pass on my love of running to them!!