First Cross Country Meet

Patrick had his first cross country meet last Sunday and he was awesome!

We had no idea what to expect at this meet. I ran cross country when I went to school at Overbrook years ago and mistakenly thought it would be a similar laid back experience. We left our house at 12pm for a 1pm meet, thinking that would be plenty of time since the kindergarteners are the first runners. We barely made it in time for his warm up! The line to get into Overbrook and the parking was absolutely ridiculous.  I assumed that only the catholic schools in Davidson county were included in the meet. Umm....no, every single private school in the area was included.  There are even a few catholic school included that are an hour away!

There were a half dozen food trucks, people who were camped out with tents for an all day event and masses of people. We were completely unprepared! We got there just in time for Patrick to walk the course with his team. He had never seen the course and it was pretty confusing! It was also very very HOT. The meet is during the two little boys naps and they were fussy and tired and very hot. Michael and I had a lot of trouble keeping up with the two little boys while also trying to see Patrick and cheer him on!

A couple of days before the meet, we learned that the Kindergartners course was 3/4 of a mile. We originally thought it was going to be 1/4 of a mile (around a tree like I used to do). There were 176 Kindergarten runners. This is how they started out.....

They start out in the middle of the field and then run around the track. It's hard to make out in the video, but Patrick is one of the front leaders on the track. And here he is about halfway through the run.....in FIRST place!!!

And the end....

Before the meet we told Patrick that we were really proud of him for working so hard at his cross country practices and to try his best today.  We explained to him that it was important that he finished the race, even if he needed to walk or was near the back. We did not expect him to excel as much as he did! He ended up in 5th place out of 176 runners with a time of 7:03. He was so excited and loved that everyone was high-fiving him and cheering him on. Can't wait to see this little guy in his next meet! Way to go big boy!!!