P365 - Day 75 athletic carnival

Today was the Kinder to Grade 2 Athletic Carnival at Juniordwarf's school.

He'd been very excited about it for the last week. From what I can tell, the Phys Ed teacher had been practising with the kinder kids what they needed to do in a running race. Juniordwarf had been practising what he'd done in Phys Ed in our hallway.

It went like this:

'Mrs S says "1-2-3-eeeep" and I run to P (the Kinder Aide)'. Then he takes off and runs down the hallway.

('Eeeep', we finally figured out, was the whistle blowing.)

So he was fully prepared for the day.

Slabs and I both took the afternoon off work to go to the carnival. I had no idea what would happen (other than Mrs S would blow the whistle and the kids would run to the finish line). The last athletics carnival I went to was when I was at school, some time last century. My own experiences of primary school athletics carnivals were participating in the ball games that the kids who weren't fast enough to qualify for the races played, and once I was in high school, failing at every single trial and being forced to spectate for the entire day. I know this will come as a complete surprise to my readers, considering my athletic physique .... ;)

Anyway enough about me, this was Juniordwarf's day.

For those of you unfamiliar with little kids sports carnivals, here's how it panned out.

We received a program of events from one of the big kids, and were lucky enough to score a seat on the sidelines opposite where Juniordwarf's class would sit. The events basically worked their way down from Grade 2 to the Kinders for their running races. Then that was followed by the same thing with the teddy bear race, followed by the friend races for the younger grades and obstacle courses for the older ones. Then there were to be some novelty races - toddler and parent races, siblings and sack races.

The kinder kids aren't allocated to a house, so they don't score any points.

It all ran very smoothly. The Grade 2s went up first. There were six lanes, so six kids got to run in each race. The first six of the age group lined up first, the next six lined up behind them and so on until all the girls had lined up (some of the races had fewer than six as the numbers ran out). The first race was run, then the next six girls would step up and run their race. Then it was the boys' turn. And as each group raced, the next group would stand in line ready to take their places behind the start line.

The kinders went last, which was great, as they could see what the other kids did.

Juniordwarf was in the last group of kinder boys and, let's just say he has probably inherited his mother's athletic ability. Not to worry. He had a fantastic time and we loved cheering for him as he ran past. I managed to get the whole race on film, so he'll forever have a record of his first running race.

He was very excited about the whole thing, but slowed down quite a bit at the end, and spent more time looking around than actually trying to get to the finish line (or in their case, to the Kinder Aide).

Then the whole process was repeated with the Teddy Bear Race, where the kids had to put their teddy bears down on the ground a few metres in front of them, then when the race started, run to the bears, pick them up and race to the end.

It was quite entertaining as some kids over-ran their teddies, or dropped them, but they all looked like they were having a lot of fun. There were a few dilemmas - whether it was better to have a bigger bear that would be easier to pick up as you didn't have to bend down so far to get it, or a smaller bear that would weigh you down less, or a bear that could sit up by itself, thus being higher than the lying down bears. One boy had a giant chicken, which looked hilarious and not conducive to effective running, but he ran an excellent race.

After the Teddy Bear Race came the Friends Race for the littlies. A variation of the three-legged race, they had to hold hands and run. Juniordwarf paired up with the little boy who came second last in their running race and they came, well, last.

He had a fantastic time, and as soon as I'd downloaded the footage of his race onto the computer at home, he watched it over and over and over again. He loved it! And once he'd finished watching it, he re-enacted his races down the hallway, including '1-2-3-eeeep . . . run!' and as he was running, 'go Juniordwarf!'

I got enlisted to participate in the hallway running carnival as well, and had to run my own race, as well as being his 'friend' in the friend race. We didn't get to the Teddy Bear Race though.

It was great fun. Almost as much fun as the actual carnival!

I'd like to post a photo, but mindful of the fact that there are other people's kids in my pictures, I won't. Plus I took all the photos on my camera, not my phone, so the best I could do today was this:

It's the running track, taken from where we were sitting. Yes, I know, there are tonnes of ways I could have improved it to make a lightly interesting image: perspective, angles, inclusion of some running shoes, or even Juniordwarf's feet . . . but I didn't think of any of it at the time. Just wanted to take a picture and capture the memory.