High School's X-Country's Cool

Following a (insert sarcastic tone here) scintillating afternoon of "Teacher Professional Development," I picked up my son from his mother's and we made the short trip to a moderately sized suburban park to watch a county high school cross-country invitational race.

Actually, we were there to see some of my seventh graders compete in the "Modified" (7th and 8th grades) undercard. For athletes in our county, seventh grade is their first opportunity to compete in any sport for their school, and for most cross country runners, it is the first time they've actually run for longer than the mile all middle and high schoolers are required to run as part of their Physical Education program... so it was very impressive to have seen so-o-o many kids, my own students especially, perform so admirably at the meet today.

I don't know how well the kids did or did not "place" this afternoon or what the "results" were... I suspect when I ask them back at school on Tuesday how they felt they did, most will say "okay, but I could have done better..." but I realize and will let them know, how really cool it was that they were able to run the distance with such dignity and grace.

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!