Kellen Newman 8 years old
This season has flown by and the great stories I recieve are stacking up, please forgive my tardy post of this exciting young athlete and I am sure the best is yet to come.
After seeing a video on you tube last year of “Track Mom’s” own, Lauren Williams running at the 2009 Phoenix Invitational, and then personally hearing about the Phoenix Invitational from Track Mom herself. I decided that we would make the long trek from Cincinnati Ohio to Phoenix Arizona with our 8 year old sub bantam son Kellen Newman.
We new that conditioning would be a challenge for this meet as the temps in ohio are still in the 30′s and 40′s at night which are not really conducive for track, and the fact that this would be our first track meet of the year, and most of the kids that he would be competing against would be on their 3rd or 4th meet of the year, and Kellen’s team in ohio hasn’t even practiced on the track yet. Taking this all into consideration, we booked our tickets and hit the airways bound for Phoenix Arizona. Kellen is no stranger to track as this is his 3rd year running AAU/USATF track and he has run and jumped in two AAU Junior Olympics with one medal to show for it in the 2009, AAU Junior Olympics in the 4 x 100 relay.
This year he is finally 8 years old and at the top of the age bracket so we wanted to test the waters against the competition early. We definitely were not surprised by or disappointed with the level of competition that he saw at the Phoenix Invitational, with 171 sub bantam boys from Nevada, California and Arizona participating in the 100M. Kellen set some goals prior to leaving home, all centered around times and distances not place, and when the dust finally settled on Sunday the little guy with the gold headband had accomplished what he set out to do, He wanted to run below 15 seconds in the 100M and he did that, taking 2nd place in the 100 with a time of 14.83, he wanted to go over 12 ft in the Long Jump and he did that by winning the long jump with a jump of 12 feet 10 ½ inches and setting a new Phoenix Invitational Sub Bantam boys long jump record.
He also wanted to go under 32:00 seconds in the 200M, but fell short there, as conditioning caught up with him in the last 50Meters, and he ended up finishing with a time of 32:42 and a 6th place ribbon, which gives him something to work for. Overall we met a lot of new people, saw a few old friends and really enjoyed the trip to Phoenix and would definitely recommend this meet for anyone looking for early season competition/Heat.
**UPDATE**
Currently Number 4 on elite youth in Long Jump 12′ 10.5 inches, should be number three but there is an error(feet converted to meters) Currently Number 4 in 400 1:11:21, Currently at 24th in 100 but when his time of 14:30 is updated on the elite youth website he will be in the top 5 so theeyou have it Kellen is preparing for more PR’s as we head into the Championship Season
Thanks to Kim Newman for this great story
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