Over the weekend we were down in Inglewood for the New Zealand Secondary Schools Athletics Champs. (And by "we" I mean just Mulan and me; Mama and Miya stayed back home.) This is different from the club national champs, which happen at the end of the season in March.
We left home on Friday morning and arrived back on Sunday evening, the drive each way taking about five hours.
We were there because Mulan had signed up for the junior girls (under 16) 80m hurdles on Saturday morning and triple jump on Sunday morning. (Mulan decided not to compete in the long jump on Friday morning as it clashed with a ballet event happening on Thursday evening.)
It was a very satisfying weekend, with two new PBs (personal bests) in the two events.
First up, into a slight head wind Mulan ran the 80m hurdles in 14.61 seconds. Overall she came 17th out of 22 competitors. What's even more satisfying is that there is still room for improvement; Mulan's main comment was that she jumped too high over the hurdles and this slowed her momentum so she had to add an extra step between the last few hurdles.
Here she is in lane 6, running in the early morning mist:
I didn't get a video of Mulan's triple jump on Sunday, as there were too many people crowding around the runup. You'll just have to trust me that her second jump of 9.70m, also into a slight head wind, was spot on. This earned her 10th place.
But you can see her third jump (which was not so good) on the YouTube livestream. The livestream was focused on the senior competitors, but it just happened to catch Mulan jumping in the background. Having already got 9.70m, Mulan decided to go hard with her final jump, but she slightly twisted her ankle on the hop landing and didn't get a strong jump into the pit. (Her ankle is okay now.)
The competition results are here, and Mulan's personalised results are here.
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