Track & Field

This past weekend I've been competing in a big track & field competition (they call it an "Athletics Carnival" in Australia) here in Rocky. Some of my students at school do track & field and invited me to come be in this competition. I didn't really want to at first, seeing as it took up the entire weekend, but then I realized it was on the first weekend of school holidays, so I've got two weeks to rest up after the competition.

Last week we had to "nominate" for events (that means "sign up" here)... since I haven't done most of these events this high school, I figured what the heck, I'll just sign up for pretty much every single event! It seemed like a good idea at the time (when I was checking off the little boxes on the paper), but after actually doing all 11 events this weekend (after my soccer game on Friday night), I'm a little sore.

I've never been that awesome at track & field, but since having my big birthday I'm officially in the "veterans" category now. The sad part about this is that it sounds like I'm old now, but the good part is that there's not as much competition in this category, meaning I can get medals more easily... woo hoo!

Overall it went really well. To put it plainly, the fat chicks were better than me at the throwing events (shot put, javelin, and discus), but I was better at the running and jumping events (60m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, long jump, triple jump, and high jump).

Actually, to be honest the high jump didn't work out so well for me. I was the only woman veteran who entered, but I managed to knock the bar off onto the flop mat a couple times (as I was jumping), and then landed directly on the bar! It KILLED!! I have some nice bruises on my bottom and back now to show for it.

Luckily I got some rewards for all my efforts this weekend though: a sweet sock-tan, and:


Andrew and I are really looking forward to our trip to Cairns... we leave tomorrow morning for the week, and will be checking out the Great Barrier Reef, etc. It'll be great to get away together, especially since Andrew's been working really hard on his masters and we haven't been able to spend as much time together as we usually do.

... so watch this space for a Cairns post in a couple weeks!