Laura and Lauren “We Wanna Run With the Big Girls”

 Track  Buddies Running With The Big Girls….

  

 Running unattached Lauren rarely has the opportunity to receive the baton..She really enjoyed the relay!

  

Saturday Henry had to work so I was in charge of getting Lauren to the All Comer’s meet and helping Lauren warm up. Due to a mix up we got to the meet at Cerritos College very late. We thought she was going to run the 55m 100m 200m and 400m. Well there was no 55m we missed the 100m and 400m.

The 200 was still ahead so she began her warm -up and I began to figure out how to salvage the track training meet day. Her friend Laura happen to get there late as well so they teamed up and decided to be fearless and run with the “big girls” .There no youth athletes in attendance . All the athletes were high school students anyway. They were going to have to run with the “Big Girls”.

About a half hour into warming up the announcer called for the 200m women.They went down to the starting line and decided they wanted to run in a heat with the high school girls not just each other.

The high school girls had other ideas, half of them didn’t want to run against the girls (maybe uncertain of the girls ability), the other half were Junior Olympic Champions and JO contenders and didn’t want to run with them either.

There was a bit of a conversation behind the line about the lane assignments and the youth athletes. Lauren spoke up and said to the female official “I want to run with the Big Girls”.

The official repeated what Lauren said and informed the high school girls they were staying. I left the starting line assured the girls were in the heat and move to the finish line.

A few seconds later the gun went off and Lauren and Laura were off. Lauren ran the curve very good Laura was right behind Lauren closing the small lead she had over Laura. At the top of the curve the high school girls left behind by the likes of Akawkaw Ndipagbor (JO Champion 2007) were really pushing not to get beat by the 8 and 9 year old. As they came down the straight away Laura continued to closed in on Lauren both of them looking very strong so early in the season.

When the race was over the youth girls came in 5th and 6th two high school girls behind them.They were very happy. After the race was over, all the athletes stayed in their lanes until the official told them that their times were officially captured on the accutrack.

Lauren and Laura were so proud they ran so well they wanted to find out their times. The times were good for so early in the season I believe 29.23 and 29.86. They skipped away and came over to me and said the wanted to run again they were not tired.

I told them grab a couple of high school girls and run in the 4X400 relay. They immediately found two gracious middle and high-school girls to indulge them a little fun!!

Minutes later they lined up for the last event of the day.The gun fired and the girls looked very serious and the race was on.

They ran the 2nd and 3rd legs and held their spot in 2nd place for their legs. The girls were so happy and kept saying how much “fun they had today”, They went to their bags and water and continued to chat and laugh.

I was talking to a coach that had help us train Lauren mid and championship season last season for a few moments while the girls took off their shoes and laughing all the while.

Of course , I was happy for the good performances, but even more happy that they were having so much fun. Every track meet day can’t be quite as much fun as Saturday was but I sure would like more to be. Today was a good day..a very good day.

TrackMom

Related posts:

1. SoCal USATF Region 15 16th Annual Awards Banquet
2. Looking Back (At Lauren) To Move Forward
3. Elite Youth 2008 Rankings Are Here!!
4. Wanna Trade Spikes???
5. How Fast Can Your Youth Athlete Run?