Saturday's Finals

Time is racing fast these days and I've just realised that I haven't written about the Track and Field finals on Saturday. 

Final straight of the 400m for our middle son.

Discus is hard to photograph without a telescopic lens. We were behind
two fences.

It was a gorgeous day, sunny and very warm (upper 20Cs) at least for these Tokyoites who've been freezing for what seems like ever-so-long. So warm we had to be careful not to get sunburnt and many were retreating to the trees scattered around the track. We sat under umbrellas a lot of the day as there was no roof on the stands. 

It was a 12-hour day for me, a bit longer for the team who left earlier than I did. I left, with a car-full of people at 7.30am and got home at 7.30pm. Of course we stopped for dinner on-base at the American fast food court. I enjoyed Subway (the chain is in Japan, but none close to our house).

I get really nervous about wrestling, but generally haven't with track and field. Maybe because my boys haven't had super lofty goals. However this time one of them did. 

Before the 400m and 100m of our middle son, I was just as nervous as I am at wrestling. But he did really well. He ran or threw personal best scores for all his events, even the relay team he was in ran a team-best. And he got three top-eight finishes too, which meant ribbon awards at the end of the day in 400m (5th), 4x400m (3rd), and discus (4th). He wasn't completely happy, his goals were higher than that, especially for the 100m (in which he came 10th out of about 100 runners from eight schools). But I was happy.

Finishing the 1,600m in first place surprised us all.

Our youngest son's overall placings weren't spectacular, which we expected, because he's competing against boys up to about 16 years of age—if they're in middle school, grades 6 to 8, they can compete. This seems grossly unfair from the perspective of an Aussie where athletics is conducted in one-year age groups. However he did produce an exciting finish in his 1,600m heat. He's pretty new at this event and didn't pace himself quite right, however he pulled out an amazing finish in which he closed a gap of about 60m in the last lap to win the race by about three metres. That went some way toward making up for the disappointment in not getting PRs or great placings.

Not too many years ago I was a "never wear pink"
gal. I'm reformed!

I'm really happy that our middle son placed in his events. This is something his brother hasn't managed to do in track and field, so this is "his" thing. I want each of my boys to find what they're passionate about. Seeing them achieve in those areas is very satisfying.

So now we have about four months of no sport on Saturday. I'm looking forward to some nice sleep-ins. But not looking forward to having to motivate my sporty boys to get out and get some exercise of their own volition. Strangely, they usually don't naturally take the initiate yet in that area. But if they don't, they get unhappy and restless. Hopefully they'll start to recognise that about themselves and take initiative more often these summer holidays.

I loved seeing these two younger siblings in the wider CAJ family
 have a wonderful time playing under the trees behind the stands.
You can't see it clearly, but there are soft "friends" placed in the tree.