Yesterday, I watched my 7th-grade grandson run in his first cross country meet. Wow! He was amazing!
Over the years, he has tried many sports (yay, I love that!), from swimming, soccer, baseball, basketball, karate, and now running. He learns fast and he's good at all of them, one of those natural athlete types. :)
He's only been running with the team for about 3 weeks now. He missed the cutoff to run in last week's meet (he was 16th and the top 15 competed). But this week, he was 13th. Best time in his qualifying 'practice' runs was 19 minutes and change.
From this week to last week, he has already learned that you can't try to sprint the entire race, you have to pace yourself. He did just that. And even though he was tired, he still managed a sprint at the end to keep two contenders from passing him near the finish line.
He placed 38th out of 121 runners in his category (of 7th and 8th graders) and shaved over two minutes off his time, coming in at 16 minutes, 27 seconds. So proud of him!!!
He's not a quitter and is the epitome of never giving up. You keep going and keep working hard, right!?!
At this point, he has started to narrow down the sports he really enjoys, letting go of those that aren't as interesting to him anymore. Baseball is out as is soccer, swimming may be on the outs (although he's incredible in all 4 strokes), karate may be out as well. He absolutely LOVES basketball and works hard with it during season and in the off-season.
I don't know if he'll continue to pursue cross country after this year or if he is interested in track...we'll see. But I was a cross country and track runner throughout junior high school, high school and the 1st two years of college and loved every minute of it, and I still run today. So, naturally, Grammy hopes he'll continue. Whatever sports he chooses, however, Grammy will always support him and cheer him on (as with all of my grands).
This is me running a relay race in junior high school track (I was about Q's age). I didn't really like relays, much preferred longer distances., but it was good training for sprinting. :)
Whatever you pursue in life, whether sports, career, relationships,... never give up on yourself, never give up on your dreams. If someone says you can't do, work harder and prove them wrong.