Eli loves his sport (well, not as much as Minecraft, but that's another story and one that I no doubt share with lots of parents of boys aged between 6-12)..but I digress...over the past month or so Eli has been busy with lots of sporting activities - he's been doing swim classes on Mondays, soccer on Tuesdays and Fridays, tennis on Fridays at school and Auskick (Australian Rules Football) after school on Thursdays...in addition, he's been training (at school) for a couple of running races, a sprint of 70 metres and a cross country race of 300 metres. Needless to say, he's both fit and, at the end of each week, somewhat exhausted (as am I).
This blog post is a chronicle of his recent successes in sport, starting with his 70 m sprint at school. Last year he won his race and this year his chances were probably improved a little given that he was racing against kids born in 2007 and not some from his grade that were born in 2006 (I won't bore you with the details of the annoying system which divides year groups!). Of course, now that he's in Grade 1 he has more competition - many of the kids last year were not really racing, as evidenced by the fact that they were unable to stay in their lanes and were just having a bit of a laugh. Nevertheless, Eli was primed for his race and for the challenge of winning (not that winning is everything of course). I wasn't there to see his race, but apparently he burst out in front from the start and maintained his lead all the way, winning by about a foot or so. He was very happy, as you can see from this photo of him with his first placed ribbon. 
Eli has also really been enjoying his soccer this year - he's in a team with a few of his classmates from school which is great - and he's also been in pretty hot form. The key for him is his drive - he wants to win the ball - and his fitness - he runs, and runs, and runs. Lots of his team mates don't - they watch and watch and watch, which infuriates Eli (and me), but also drives him to run even more. By the end of the game on each Friday night Eli has typically saved a few goals, scored a few goals and used up the last of his energy for the week. Here are some photos of him in his Tarragindi Tigers gear, prior to the team photo being taken.
Back on dry land again Eli recently raced in the cross country race at school. For this event they didn't split the year groups, so Eli was in with all of the Grade 1's (some of which are already seven years old). Eli was feeling pretty confident, despite the fact that he (and I) are more built for sprints than longer distance events. He'd been reporting on his progress in Physical Education classes at school, where he had been consistently been coming in the top three runners (but this is just within his class, not the whole grade). Fortunately I was on hand to see him line up...in this photo he's the smallest runner in yellow...And they're off!
And he was flying by the time he got closer to me and the first corner on the circuit...
I wasn't the only one that was proud - Eli was thrilled with his performance too.
Just a quick finishing note on Eli's swimming. It is fair to say that we've missed a few weeks through winter, for a variety of reasons, but he's been doing really well (aside from coughing a lot from the high chlorine levels in the indoor pool!) when we've turned up. In fact he's just gone up to the next level, which is great, because he does tend to get a bit bored when he's not challenged enough.
What a sports star!
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