Tracking the Progress

Another spring has come. Well, it was really slow in coming. This has been one of the longest winters and the rainiest springs, but it is getting there. Ivory decided to go out for track. I feel like all the kids should try it. (I didn't succeed with Robyn, but she did take tennis, which she still likes and which will be featured later in this post.) Ivory does distance running. She seems to like it, but I think she likes the social aspect most of all. 

June was pretty fast her 7th grade year. She really enjoyed running and made good time. Ivory is not quite as fast, but I think she has great potential. Her pacing is very good and she starts in the back, but passes a lot of people. June doesn't run anymore. Her shin splints got so painful in 9th grade that she decided to stick with ballroom and give up the running for now. But she wanted to come watch and Robyn also came to support. That was great, because I was able to time and the girls took some pictures for me. 

I'm not sure if Ivory was nervous for her first track meet. It looks sunny, but I think most of the meets were cold! We brought blankets and curled up in the stands each time. Here she is trucking along. 

Like I said, Ivory keeps a good pace and reserves some energy and is able to sprint at the finish. 

This was her first time.

Ivory also competed in the 800 each meet, but I was never able to stay for the whole thing because usually I was taking kids to work or something else. So mainly, I was tracking her mile.

The next track meet, Ivory knew what she was doing. I was hoping she could beat her time from the last meet. Here she is talking to friends before the mile. She has lots of friends in track and I'm sure that makes it more fun at practice. 

Here she comes sprinting in. (And hello random guy with the sunglasses.)

Eleven seconds off her time. Nice work!

Because of kid conflicts, I missed the next meet. I tried to get there, but the mile had just finished when I pulled up. Such is the life of a busy mom. Ivory said she was close to 7 minutes, but I wasn't able to time her. (I'm not sure why they don't do a better job getting the kids their times. It seems they would want to know, but a lot of the time, they don't even call it when they cross the finish line.)

Final track meet of the season and Ivory was pretty chill. She knew she wouldn't go to Alpine Days because you need to finish in the top three consistently, and whereas she had improved each time, there were some very fast runners in her grade. 

Ivory had a great race. We cheered her on all the way and she was able to get a PR! Just under 7 minutes.

I'm so proud of this cutie. She supported all her friends at Alpine Days and our school did really well. The girls came in first overall! I'm hoping Ivory will do track again next year.

On the other side of the coin, Robyn (who does NOT do track) did tennis again this Spring. It was a weird season for her. It was not the smooth sailing of last year, because this time Robyn had a job, so she missed many practices and meets. And the weather was so crazy. Practice and meets got canceled here and there, so it was hard for Robyn to get work off on the right days, because we never knew when it would be clear. Oh, and somehow the coach left my email off the list so I didn't even get messages about rescheduled meets. It was a bit of a mess.

When Robyn finally made it to a meet, she did well. She likes to play doubles and she was paired up with Megan in varsity.

They won that match. However, Robyn missed enough matches that they put her on JV for the tournament. I told her she should be happy, because she had work off that day. She was able to play one JV match with her partner Kate before the tournament. (Oops, I missed pictures of that.) The tournament was on a Saturday. 

The mountains were a beautiful backdrop and it was a gorgeous day...up until it wasn't. Gotta love Utah. If you don't like the weather, just wait an hour. In this case, it had been blazing hot in the morning. We had done yard work and an Easter egg hunt and I had gotten a mild sunburn. Then, in the afternoon, a storm rolled it, the temperature dropped and it eventually started to rain with lightning in the distance. They didn't call the match, but they did have everyone take shelter for twenty minutes or so. (Many thanks to Chris for letting us pack in his car. We didn't have a vehicle that day.)

Kate and Robyn did a great job. They won their first match and then had a tie breaker in both their other games. Sadly, they lost both, but only by a smidge. It was really close and they were both good sports about it. Robyn really likes tennis. Although she can't play in the fall because of Marching Band, I think she will keep playing in the Spring. 

I'm happy to see my girls developing healthy lifestyles. I think it is important to be active, whether you like to run, tumble, dance, or play tennis. Just get up and get moving!