Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog, so I will start with the end of September. The Partridge Race - what can I say? This 30 year old race has been held in a hamlet very close by for the last three decades. The school in that hamlet closed two years ago and the race would have gone the way of all things if Dave hadn't volunteered to take the helm and bring it to St John Bosco. Although I knew what a mammoth production hosting this race would be, I was completely supportive. In the final analysis, the Partridge Race occupied some of our summer and much of our September. Turns out that hosting (and feeding) over 300 runners and their cheering fans is a lot of work. To end with a cliche: but it was all worth it.
My good friend Sarah babysat Mariana for the day so that I could be at the race site from start to finish. I wore a few hats, but I was able to be at the finish line for all the kids as they came through the finishing chute. Amusingly, that chute was constructed of electric fencing from the farm. No, it wasn't turned on. By the way, that headless man on the chair is Dave as he announces the top three finishers in each race. Jacob came third in the Gr. 8 Boys 1600 m. I was so proud of him as he has trained hard for months and over the past few years he has moved from sixth place up to third place. I almost cried when I saw him come across that finishing line only a second behind the top two runners. Jacob was very happy with himself. "A fine end to gr. 8," he chirped.
Hannah has placed in the top three consistently for the past few years. However, this year was her year and she won both the gr. 8 Girls 1600m as well as the open 3000m. One of the highlights of her 1600m race was that the top three girls were all from Bosco. How nice to watch girls who have been together since kindergarten cross the line one after another.
Ben and Joe were both in the gr. 4-5 boys 1600 m race. Ben was a shoe-in for first place, but cramped up badly and finished third. Amazingly, dear Joe with his arm in a cast came sixth. He later told me that he had an unfortunate encounter with a stick on the course and had to pull it out of his cast before he could resume running! Ben later ran the boys open 3000m and placed fifth against boys in gr. 7 and 8. Indeed, he was only one spot behind Jacob who placed fourth. We were very, very proud.
And then came Isaac. We knew that this boy had winning potential, but his training hadn't shown what he could do. He is, after all, only six, and, being six, his strategy was to run super fast and then walk all the training runs. I told him that on race day I was sure that he could be a winner if he made sure to stay ahead of everyone and didn't let anyone pass him. I also promised him 30 minutes of iPad time if he placed. Shameless and hyper-competitive, I know. As soon as he came out of the woods, his siblings ran next to the fencing cheering and coaching him on. He crossed that line and immediately hunted me down looking for his iPad time.
Hannah received the Outstanding Female Athlete trophy for her first place finish in the 3000. The funny part of that story was that Dave had picked up the newly engraved trophy the day before and left it on his desk awaiting the race day. Two boys in his class decided that tossing the trophy between them might be a fun activity. Hannah warned them that what they were doing was very unwise and that the trophy was going to get broken. (Can you see how this ends?) Sure enough, down went the trophy and crack went the hardware. The principal took the matter in hand: boys in the main office and the trophy with one of the EAs who jerry-rigged it with hot glue. When the boys saw what they had done, they and a few others told Hannah that it she had to win the 3000m as we couldn't give a broken trophy to another school. And now the flawed trophy sits in Hannah's room next to the one that she received last year.
The other humorous race anecdote had to do with the point system. Each of the top three runners earns a certain amount of points towards their school's point count. Reviewing the points at the end of the day, we realized that if our kids had run as the Afelskie School, our family would have placed third against the other 8 schools. There are strategic advantages to having seven children.
2 comments:
That's so awesome about all the points you guys earned! It was such a fun day. Many thanks to the tireless Dave and Elena for taking on such a task.
This is so awesome, Elena! And fun to see one of our little buddies among your photos - the first place winner of the 5/6 boys race was Mark Baillie (one of Julie's twin boys). :)
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