hounds and foxes

Today was a cool spring day. In the sun, I felt like wearing short-sleeves, but when the clouds overtook and the wind blew, I wanted a parka.
I postponed my workout till the afternoon and pushed Asher and Brandt in double jogger through the sports complex and back to meet Eli getting off the bus. Running with that thing up and down the steep hills of the sports complex is not for sissies. I saw a bunch of high school soccer players walking to a field, and they were looking at me with awe ( ha, ha...more like pity!!!).

The kids did a great job today at track practice. We met at the mall field. After our warm-up and stretching, I had them do some deep-knee squats and then explode from that into an in-place high-jump. We did about 8 of those. Then we did our dynamic movement exercises.
I bought a couple of batons last week, and the kids were very excited to use "the real thing" instead of PVC pipes. We did a couple of relays. Each child ran about 50 meters/leg. I love the relays because it gets the kids cheering for each other.
Then we did a game called hounds and foxes. I had the three oldest kids be the hounds. The rest were foxes. The foxes had to take off and run the approximately 100 yards around a tree and back. The hounds took off about 10 seconds after the foxes and had to try and pass them. Every fox they passed stayed a fox in the next round. Every fox they didn't pass could become a hound in the next round. They loved it. I had to adjust the rules a little (the hounds tried turning around early to catch up the first time, so their passes the first time didn't count), but I think all in all I think the game was a winner.
I ran the kids the most I have so far, and they held up pretty well. They seem to be getting in better running shape.
Oh yeah.. one bummer. Our meet this Sat. was canceled. I'm not sure why. I think a lot of teams just haven't practiced much because of cool weather and spring break, so it is postponed till April. We haven't been on the track much, so it won't hurt us to have more practice time before out first competition.