In the face of odds...

My dad was a college football player. He told me a story of meeting several of his football buddies to work out at the gym. They all arrived there only to find that the gym was closed for maintenance. These guys were all geared up to have a hard workout pumping iron and exercising, so they were very disappointed to find it closed. One guy didn't stand around moping long, he set down his gym bag and started doing push-ups right there by the front door. This impressed my dad, and he used this guy as an example to teach me that if you are dedicated, and something is truly important to you, you will make it happen.

In the face of some opposition, we made practice happen today. When we arrived, it looked like the soccer team wasn't going to let us use the track. One thing that worked to our advantage is that there are ALOT of us. Our numbers are a force to be reckoned with! Secondly, we DO have permission from the school system--and we are insured as a team-- to be on the track at the time of our practices each week. Once the people in charge were aware of that, they softened quite a bit and consented to our using all but the homestretch. And even with only a portion of the track to use, about 60 athletes were able to get good workouts in!

After warming up and stretching, the yellow group did a pyramid workout: 50, 100, 200, 100, 50. Then they practiced the standing long jump.
I got to work with the purple group today. We practiced the standing long jump, then we played several rounds of foxes and hounds in the field behind the discus net. After our dynamic movement exercises, we headed to the track and ran 3 100's--starting at the 200 start and practicing running on the inside of the lane around the curve. Then we learned to do indian relays with the baton and ran a couple of 200 loops doing that.
The pink group began doing indian relays with the baton. This is done by having a group of 5 or 6 runners jog single file. The front runner holds a baton. The back runner moves to the right and passes all the runners in the line(she must pick up her pace quit a bit to do this). Once she's at the front, the previous front runner who is holding the baton says, "Stick," and hands off the baton to the new front runner. This is repeated as the group loops around the track. The pink group couldn' t be on the track for this today, so they did it in the field in front of the shot-put area. Then they moved on to the track to practice relay hand-offs.
The green group practiced relay hand-offs, running several 100m sprints working to get their technique perfected.
WAY TO GO TEAM!!