Track and Field

One of Ethan's coaches at St Faiths suggested that he sign up for the Cambridgeshire County Track & Field championships, which took place this Saturday. Ethan enrolled in the javelin throw and the 800 meters in the Under-13 age group, which featured kids from Year 6 and Year 7 (11 and 12 year olds). He did well, in spite of being a nervous wreck for the 24 hours before the event.

St Faiths was well represented in both events, which was nice-- it felt a bit more like a team competition as a result. There were about a dozen kids in his 800 meter race. Nice day; cool but not cold, breezy, sunny. Here is the start of the race:



The runners got off to a very quick start; one of the other boys jumped out to a big lead almost immediately. Here is a photo of the pack just before the second of two laps:



As the fellow in the lead soon found out, the 800 meter race is not a sprint, and the pack began to reel him in at the start of the second lap, and then by the final turn he had fallen a bit behind. The finish:





Two other runners made a good challenge, but he was able to hold them off to finish first. Bravo Ethan!

Next was the javelin throw, a very odd event. To be honest, before this I have never really bothered to pay it much attention. The U17, U15, and U13 boys all took their throws together; the U13's use a 400-gram javelin and the others use 600g and 700g models. It turned out to be very difficult to photograph, since most of the time there was a pack of people standing in front of the spot where the throws were taking place. Here is one shot of Ethan in his post-throw follow-through (you can just see the last bit of the javelin en route):



A boy from King's Ely won the U13 age group, with St Faiths taking the next three slots (Ethan came in fourth). All in all, an enjoyable and very satisfying day for Ethan.