First Junior High Track Meet

After practicing track for four weeks, Cara had her first junior high track meet last week.  The weather was supposed to be 50 degrees.  But, the temp was below 50 and the wind was blowing 20 mph out of the north.  It was a cold afternoon at the track.  This Mom had on her stocking hat, gloves, winter coat and took two blankets and a winter coat for Cara to stay warm.

 

 This track meet was an inner-city track meet that consisted of students from Norfolk Catholic, St. Paul's Lutheran, Christ Lutheran and Norfolk Public.  Each school could enter as many students as they wished in each event, but each student could only have four events if one was a relay.  7th Grade events was separate from 8th Grade.  Cara was to compete in the long jump, discus throw and the 400M. 

 Cara had a frustrating day at the track meet.  Her first event was supposed to be the discus, but the 7th Grade boys took so long on the event, that she checked in for the event and found out that she was in the 4th grouping to throw.  Therefore, she headed to the long jump pit.  The man in charge of the event was rude to her and told her at first that she had missed her jumps because he had called her name and she was not present.  She explained that she had been at the discus because she was also competing in that event.  Therefore, he decided to let her have her jumps.  But, he made her complete her two warm-up jumps and then followed by her three jumps for the event with no breaks in between.  This is not how the other girls in the event competed.  They each got a break between each jump.  Her first jump was 10'9" and her second jump was 11'5".  But, the guy wrote the 2nd jump down incorrectly.  Lastly, she scratched on her 3rd jump which was by far her best.

 Then she ran back over to the discus event for her throws.  While waiting for her turn, they call the 400M event.  Therefore, Cara asked the lady running the event if she could be moved to the front of the line to get her throws in before having to go run.  The lady moved her to the front and made her throw all three attempts one after another.  She did not throw well in this event.

Last, she went to go check in for the 400M dash.  They were lining up the 7th Grade girls to run and there were only 5 runners.  Cara told the guy running the event that her name had not been called to run.  He told her that her name wasn't down for the event; therefore, she could not run.  She walked away and the race started.  Her coach saw the race start and asked her why she wasn't running and she told him that she wasn't entered in the race.  She was so frustrated on the entire day because of how things were run. 

Tomorrow she has another track meet and I am hoping that it will go better for her.  She is entered in four events:  long jump, triple jump, discus and 400M.  Plus, the weather is supposed to be warmer and not as windy.  I hope and pray that her season gets better for her.

Take care,
Michelle