XC

This week was a first for our family!  We attended a Cross Country meet!

My not-so-little-anymore guy is the one in the white jersey - #2555!

My middle-one-of-three, my not-so-little-anymore guy is a freshman in high school this year and decided to try something entirely new to him - Cross Country.  He attended voluntary summer workouts all summer long and for those of you who live in the south, you know how crazy hot it is in the summer! Never the less, we arose early each weekday morning, and he met other teammates at 8AM to try this new sport - running.

I'm so proud of him for sticking with it because doggone it, Cross Country is hard!!!  I mean, honestly, I really know little to nothing about running except for the fact that I hate doing it!  But he's stuck with it!  He runs at least five days a week and works in other training "stuff" as well.

We have always encouraged our kiddos to get involved with sports and not just because of the fitness aspect.  Lessons galore are learned from being part of a team - hard work pays off, working together necessary even if a teammate isn't your favorite person in the world, what I do affects other people, winning and losing is a part of life, not everybody gets a trophy...  I could go on and on.

Attending this first meet was quite interesting to me.  The coach asked if I could photograph the race so I roamed from point A to point B to point C and so on and snapped away.  While doing so, I watched boys and girls from at least six different schools weave their way through the course - some faster, some medium, some slower.  But regardless of their speed, regardless of their school affiliation, everyone encouraged everyone!  It was so different from any sporting event I have been to.  It was as if they all understood that they were just runners and knew that encouragement helped them get through the course! Sure enough, they all eventually made it across the finish and "Good jobs!" were given to each one.  

For his first every race, my Jac-Jac did pretty well!  Out of 54 boys, he finished 29th.  His average mile time was about 7 1/2 minutes.  Not too shabby for a guy who didn't start distance running until about two months ago! Yep, I'm a proud momma - mostly proud of his perseverance, and a little of his performance as well!  Run Jac run!!!