Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Athletics Carnival


After a few days of crappy weather, it was a fluke that we actually packed our sports gear for school that morning.  After the 45 minute morning drive, the sky was overcast but not raining when we arrived in the city.  I was the only parent arriving at the athletics carnival in a suit, but none the less I was present.

Although the school has fantastic facilities, they take advantage of a local university for their athletics carnival.  Looking back to my state school days, some hand drawn lines on the "school oval" were about as good as it got.  I also managed to land in the rep team for athletics, and even then the facility was the a nearby town's local footy field, hardly athletic facilities!

It was amazing to be sitting the the covered stands and watching the kids run on a proper track.  Even with the zoom lens I could tell that there was still some anxst on the starting line.  Possibly she was thinking back to her performance in the swimming carnival and wondering how you can go from the top of one school down to the bottom of another.

When the gun went off, she was away, and I was cheering just off the track, and the smile from her indicated that she had heard that Mummy was there.


Second in the 80 metre sprint and third in the 100 metre sprint, with sizzling times to land her in the final.  This means she made the top 8 for the 9 year olds.  I was so proud.  Apparently not so for the child, her harshest critic.  I may have been described as a driven over-achiever in my time, so I am super conscious of not placing my demands onto Maddison.  I think the schools schedules are demanding, throw in extra swimming, violin and speech and drama lessons and there is little down time for her.


To celebrate the success of the day, we headed off to Toy World to pick out a reward.  I was also super excited to get the official letter from the school, she made the schools reprentative squad for athletics.  Little did we know at that time that required three training sessions per week, and two of them start at 6:45 am.  It is winter now, the mornings are cold, but she never complains about having to participate. And each Wednesday afternoon I arrive to see the final half of training, often with a little chocolate something stashed in my back pack.  I am not sure she will make the final team, but I couldn't be prouder of her efforts.


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