Super Sam

The two high schools here in Lodi, Lodi and Tokay High, put on a track meet for all of the elementary school kids that feed into those two high schools. The kids come from all over Lodi, North Stockton, and small surrounding communities. They do this get them interested in track and field, and to recruit kids for their summer track program that prepares them for high school. 

Sam's elementary school P.E. teacher encourages the kids from her classes to go. She told Sam he should run the 800, and mile. Last year he did some shorter events as a 5th grader, and did fine. This year he decided he just wanted to run the mile. 

So he jumped out of bed, and got himself down to the track meet early with a friend. Suz and I jogged down later a got there right before his event.

He ran the mile, and he's been telling me how he's doing at school. I knew he'd do well, but with so many kids from all over I didn't know how well. 

The race must have had over 40 kids in it. It was packed, and I couldn't even spot Sam in the group until a couple of seconds before the race started. 

When the race started it was like a sprint race for the first 200 yards. Sam was back about 8 spots. He hung with the fast kids, but didn't sprint like the kids out in front. After lap one Sam was in fourth. As he made his way around the track on the second lap he just ran a good looking lap. He didn't kill himself, but he passed each kid in front of him one by one. Toward the end of the lap two the two kids left in front of him saw him coming, and pushed themselves a little harder and added about 10 yards to their lead. Sam kept "pushing" them, and eventually they couldn't keep their pace and Sam moved in front on the last 200 yards of lap two. His lap 2 time was 2:34. Once he got in front his pace eased up a little on the back side of lap three. One boy came within 10 yards of him, but didn't come much closer. On lap four he turned it on in the back stretch, and opened up his lead a bit. 

He won with a time of 6:09. The next kid was about 10 seconds behind him. It was hard to tell at that point who finished second because he had lapped a whole bunch of kids, and he was in the mix of all of them. 

He really looked great running. His stride was "perfect" according to the high school coaches who want him to come spend the summer working out with them. I loved watching him run, it looked so easy. Never clumsy. Can't wait to see what he looks like as he gets older, and faster.