The "MeatBall Run"

Miss M loves these track meets that a local track club holds for 6 weeks every summer. They've been held for something like 25-30 years. I'd never heard of them until about 3 years ago and we've been taking M since.

K doesn't want to run, or do the long jump. He just likes to hang with Daddy I guess. Maybe next year he'll want to run. Or not. Doesn't really matter.

But M really has a blast.

They do races, by age and sex, starting with 2 and under girls, then 2 and under boys...on up to adults. (Although most adults don't run until the longer distances.) They start with the 50m, 100m, 200m...I'm told they go up to 800m, but we've never stayed past the 200.

M is of the mind-set that she must be nice to her fellow runners. She lets others go ahead of her. If someone falls, she wants to stop and console. She's told to "stay in your lane" so she'll stay behind the girl in front of her to the point that she's about to fall over her.

She's a "nice" runner.

That being said, tonight she was awarded 3rd place in two of the 3 races she ran. She thought the extra ribbons were great.

Once she gets the competitive spirit (next summer?) I think she'll be tough to beat.

Whatever, she has a lot of fun.

They also do a long jump. This season she's jumped from 4 feet 4 inches down to 2 feet. I think the people scoring were pretty impressed with the 4-year-old's jumps though.

I'm trying to keep the praise centered on her..."Wow, you really tried hard running that race" and "It looked like you had a lot of fun doing those jumps" like "they" say you should do. But I wanted to tell her how she "beat" those other kids...but it just doesn't seem right when she is so big physically compared to her competitors. (Although she had two of the "smaller" girls beat her in 2 races and more than that in the other!)

M calls these track meets "the meatball run." I think that's my favorite part of it all. I bet next year they won't be called that. And that makes me a little sad.