Athletics

We finished our athletics season at Takapuna Athletic Club on Wednesday evening, when we had the second of our Club Championship days.  Except for our Club prize-giving in May, we won't have any more athletics until the new season in October.

Wednesday was a busy day for us, as the girls also had their homeschool swimming championships earlier that day.  (I'll write something about this soon.)

This season, the girls both chose to prioritise their ballet over their athletics. This meant that they both missed athletics clubnights and coaching when they had clashes with their ballet lessons.  Also, with having music on Saturdays we didn't try to do any regional/inter-club athletics championship events.

Nonetheless, both girls did extremely well in the Club Champs.

Miya came first in both the shot put and discus in her Grade 8 competition.  In her other events she placed just outside of the top three, but still performed very well.  In particular, she got a new PB (personal best) of 3.10m in the long jump, gaining fourth place.

There's a really nice bunch of about half a dozen girls in Mulan's Grade 11 group.  At this age the casual competitors tend to drop out, leaving the more motivated ones.  The girls often share the placings between them as they go from event to event.  This year, Mulan got first in the long jump (4.22m) and 800m, second in the high jump, third in the shot put, discus, 100m, 400m and 1500m, and fourth in the 200m.

In the Veteran (over 40s) group, I'm the only regular competitor, though there are a couple of other guys who occasionally join in.  So, I got seven firsts and two seconds.  We had an awesome fun 100m race, where the electronic timer registered two of us at 13.51 seconds -- I was beaten into second place by a few thousandths of a second!  On a good day I can still get in the low 13 seconds, though it looks like these days under 13 seconds is increasingly unlikely.

Nonetheless, with doing a bit of fitness training this season, I got a new "old man personal best" (over 40 years old) in the 800m, of 2.38.36 sec.  I was also just 0.1 seconds off my 400m old man best, when I got 1.02.00 sec.

Mulan and Miya have had a fun competition between themselves this year.  Mulan's first season of athletics was Grade 8, so they have been looking back at her old PBs of that year and comparing them with Miya's.  Let's just say the competition has been fairly well matched, though Miya has had a slight advantage because she started athletics younger and has had more years to practice technique.

The girls and I have all agreed that when I turn 50 (in 2025) the three of us will have a few races together.  Mulan will be 18 and Miya will be 15.  I wonder if I'll be able to keep up with them.

(This time last year I also wrote about our athletics season just finished.)