Running in ovals

Track again. This meet was called the Pony Relays, but inexplicably, not a single pony was involved! Even MORE inexplicable were some of the events: the Shot Put relay, the triple jump relay, the pole vault relay, and the discus relay. I'd like to see the shot putters run around a track with a shot put and passing it on to the next guy. And how do you do a discus relay--throw the discus to the next guy and expect him to catch it? Pole vaulting--do you run with your pole and stab the next guy in the back?

har har har. Paul tried to explain it to me but he's no good at explanations. "See they don't really run. They um they um throw and then add everything up. Yeah."

Translation: Each team is allowed to bring 3 guys per non-running event (4 for track events). For the field events, the athletes throw the discus (shot put) (or they do the high jump, pole vault, triple jump) and the scores for the three (or four, depending on the event) teammates are combined and compared against the combined score of other high schools.

The exception to this is the Weightmens relay in which the throwers (shot put or discus) actually run a 4 x 100m relay race with a baton. What the heck? They make the guys who can't run do some running in a race situation? What is the point of having them run a race? The fastest Weightmen team would have come in dead last if they had competed against the regular 4 x 100m teams.

Anyway, Paul ran in the 3200m relay (no baton passing cuz that would be a nearly 50 minute race if they all ran one at a time) and he and his three teammates all achieved personal records. That's right, folks, Paul finally ran the two mile in under 11 minutes. His new personal best is 10:55! His team placed fourth by .7 seconds! I told him he should have run faster. Then said, Just kidding--good job! (But he should have run faster) (wink) His team's combined time was 41:55.70.

Then he ran the 1600m relay too, only THIS time, they had to have batons and pass it to the next runner. So this race DID take a while--nearly 22 minutes, although Paul's team ran it in 20:28.40. Paul ran his leg in 5:11. Not his fastest, but I like to keep in mind that he had run the 3200m just an hour or so earlier. Funny thing is, none of them knew that they had to run it with a baton. Even their coach didn't know. So they had no practice handing off the baton.

So that's your sports report for today.

In other news, Hayley volunteered at the school carnival, Matt played with a friend, OJ talked on the phone for a REAL long time, I avoided falling over a couple of times, and Jim fertilized the lawn.

Comments

Jenni said…
ok, I so commented already and it didn't post.

I said that I would have been disappointed if there were no ponies because I go places just for the ponies.

I was proud of how Paul achieved a personal best running in ovals. Can he run that fast in triangles and trapezoids?

And I also said that the girls like OJ because he talks on the phone
Dennis said…
Congratulations Paul on running your best time. I think it would take me 15 days to run/crawl that far.
Jen said…
Yay, I'm finally able to sit down and read and comment on all bloggies. Oh, how I've missed doing that.

Wow to Paul! He's some runner. Keep up the great work.