HMS 2015 Track Meet

Yep...got volunteered for another outing.
But you know what, this was an amazing event for the students of Humberside.
Varsity Stadium has been rebuilt for the Pan Am games.
There's seating on only 1 side of the stadium now.  It used to be all around the stadium.  But this Stadium used to be the home of the Toronto Argonauts and had been host to several Grey Cup games.
Well now it's home to the UofT Varsity Blues Football team.
And it looks pretty nice.

We got up extra early this morning so that we wouldn't be late heading out to Varsity Stadium for the Track Meet.  It would look pretty bad if this parent volunteer was late bringing the kids he was in charge of to the meet.  The kids would have left him behind.

Most were awake.  Others, still getting there.

I remember going to a track meet as a kid in Gr 7 & 8.  But I don't remember participating in an event.  Guess I'll be doing much the same this time too.  But Kieran and his class, that wanted to come. There was one kid trying to lobby all the other kids not to go.

Cough, cough, Josh, cough, cough.  I'm not sure if he went last year and just didn't like it.

But weather wise, it looked to be a pretty nice day.  And for the most part it was.  A little chillier than I had expected, but it was ok.  Overcast, but that was probably a good thing.  Kids didn't really mind. The teachers, parent volunteers, students all had a great time.   Some had more coffee than others, but otherwise it was amazing and entertaining.

There were I think 9 schools participating.  And it started right on schedule.  About 30 mins late. Ha.  Good thing the stadium is open on the one side, because some couldn't figure out where the entrance was.

I helped out timing the U8 and U10 hurdles.  Which was fun.  There were 5 lanes and there were sometimes 5 kids or less.  Each timing person took a lane.  A person on the timing side raised a flag to say we were all ready and the starter would get the kids lined up and drop the flag to indicate GO!

What we didn't expect was that the kids sometimes didn't understand the concept of staying in your lane. Especially the U8 kids.  They were the best.

It was more like follow the leader or playing a game of Galaga.
As timers we either had to call out which kid we had or move with the kids as they moved lanes or as they got closer and we could read their numbers, (if they stuck it to the front, some stuck it to the back) we'd shout it out that "I've got kid #368!"  So we knew.  And it worked out pretty well.  Made it interesting.  I wished I could have video recorded it.  It was so funny.

HMS had U10 and up. At least I got to see Kieran and a few of his buddies race the hurdles.

It was amazing to see all the kids cheering their team members on. As well as the announcer say "Off the TRACK!"  Haha.  They were all so excited and in the spirit of the games.

The best event we watched had to be the high jump.  Techniques were variations of jumping from bed to bed, from floor to couch and diving into a pool or lake.  That's what it seemed like to me.

They were down to the 3 remaining kids and each had knocked down the bar, so they went back and did it again 3 more times until 1 remained.
And the sight of the kids from that school cheer in unison and hug their classmate was the spirit of these games.  This is how it should be all the time.

To make things interesting when we didn't have HMS kids in a heat, or it was a scheduled break we'd all start betting on which lane would come in first.  It was like a primer in horse races.
I'll take Lane 5, 4-1 odds.
Go #5! Go!

Some kids were all business.







Others were clowning around.  It was a lot like a circus half-time show.









And others were having a picnic.







We even had a fan from the US.  Now we know exactly where she moved.  When I heard it from the kids.  It was 3 different places.  Lara was back up for a family visit and managed to drop in to see the kids that miss her.

It didn't matter if you were first or last, or that you participated in 1 or all 8 events, but that you tried your best and had a lot of fun.
Because tomorrow your body will probably ache.


 Photos: HMS 2015 Track Meet