Cross Country

Amber started cross country at school this last week. The season actually started a couple weeks ago, but the school never sent home any info so I wasn't aware Amber was even old enough. Seems like when I was in grade school, school sports were only for 5th grade and up. But here in Peoria, they're 3rd+. Practice is before school Mon-Thurs and today was Amber's first meet. Everyone else's second. She was very nervous - I think David was more nervous for her though - but we assured her as long as she did her best, we'd be proud of her. After waiting through 7/8th grade girls and then boys, and 5/6th girls and then boys, it was finally her turn. She went and lined up with the 3/4th graders, got pushed to the back (we're working on her assertiveness), caught up to the front, got pushed into a cone, was tripped coming around a corner, but still came in 14th out of about 45 girls. Gooooo, Amber! She was very proud of herself and felt good after the race. She pushed herself hard at the very end and passed a few girls. David and I gave her some tips for her next race and she's confident she'll do better now that she know how far she has to run. I guess her coach doesn't have them run much in practice. One lap around the field, some stretches, and a game. And she didn't even have them warm-up this morning, either. Lame. So Amber's just going to have to push herself to run as fast as she can without stopping every morning doing her one lap and hope she can build her strength and endurance enough to do better next time. I wish I had pictures to share, but my camera is still dead and won't do anything. I will be getting a new one asap.