Pictures of Will looking serious at his first track meet

For the last three weeks, Will has been participating on the elementary school track team. It's his first chance to be on a school sponsored sports team.  The weather hasn't been exactly helpful for track events but when it snowed, the coaches moved practice inside and the kids kept working.  Will participated in a city-wide (well eight other schools were there) track meet on Monday and had a great time!  I took part of the day off and packed a bag full of sunscreen and cold drinks and I almost froze to death.  Okay, that's a little dramatic but it was cold!  After dropping the kids off at school, I made a u-turn back to the house and grabbed long pants and a light jacket before I headed to the track meet. I should've grabbed my ski jacket and a blanket but I'll remember that for next year.  

Back to the track meet.  Will was participating in three events:  long jump, shuttle relay and hurdles.  The long jump was up first.  It took Glenn and I one lap around the stadium before we realized that the long jump was actually outside of the stadium so we missed his first jump.  

Getting ready for jump #2.  

Stretching and looking serious.  

He's ready to go!  

And there he goes!  

At this point, I should have a picture of him landing in the long jump pit but honestly I haven't mastered the art of taking pictures and cheering at the same time and therefore that picture does not exist.  We watched his second and third jumps and thought he was doing pretty well.  Turns out, he placed 6th out of 30-something 4th grade boys.  Sixth place was good enough for a ribbon!

Next up was the relay.

There's a smile!  

Getting ready for the baton.  

The relay was a lot of fun to watch but at this point, I was getting pretty cold.  Glenn had to go back to work so I was able to snag his jacket. After the relay, Will came and sat by me (awww!) and we watched the rest of the events before Will's hurdles.  For the hurdles, there were at least 4 heats of 8 boys each.  Will's heat was towards the end.  

Getting ready to hurdle something. 

No action shots here either because I was nervous!  I had no idea how fast Will was compared to the other kids and given the fact that I can trip over a tiny crack in a sidewalk, I didn't know how much jumping ability he had inherited from either side of the family.  Long story short?  Will finished second in his heat!   I was so impressed!  We had to wait for one more heat to see if he made the finals.  He did!  More hurdling!  The final heat included two of his friends from not only school, but his class.

The Jaguars lined up for the final heat.  

It was another great race and Will grabbed another ribbon by finishing 6th.  Pretty amazing for his first track meet!