A.M. First ran 6 with Benjamin and Ariel. Then Jacob wanted to do a time trial. So I took him, Joseph, and William to the track. For the warm-up we did William's 400 m time trial. William is 3 years old, turning 4 in October. He got to 150 meters without me holding his hand, then he said he was scared and took my hand. He needs to learn to run fast without holding my hand to be ready for the Thanksgiving race where in order to win he will likely need to break 2:00 without holding anybody's hand. He ended up running 2:21 which is not a bad time at this point. It will, however, be a challenge to get him ready by Thanksgiving as he is less mature. He just barely got out of diapers, and his ability to talk and understand instructions is still not quite at the racing level. An important aspect of preparation for a little kid. I must say training a little kid to run fast when it matters is very educational for the parent. On the positive side, William is way ahead of where Benjamin was at his age. Benjamin at the age of about 4 and 8 months ran 400 meters in 2:26 with me holding the hand all the way. He did manage to win the Thanksgiving race that year with 2:37 due to the lack of competition among boys. Then it was time for Jacob's time trial. We did 800 meters. Our goal was to try to get as close as we could to 3:30. Jacob is 5 years and 11 months old. He will be 6 on Thanksgiving, 6 year old division has never been won with anything faster than 3:28 from what I remember, and it was Joseph last year. So I figure if he can run anywhere close to 3:30 now, barring some prodigy competition or severe race day misfortune he will win. Incidentally, he is the only child in our family that has ever won the 2-year-old 100 meter run, and when he did it was decisive - 35 seconds with a gap of 11 seconds, I believe, on the nearest competitor. I think his secret is that he is naturally very obedient. You tell him to do something, and he just does it if he can at all. So he did his 800 meters with Joseph being a rabbit (per Jacob's request) running about 5 seconds ahead, and me being by his side (also per Jacob's request). His splits were nearly perfect for the time he got - 52, 55 (1:47), 54, 53 (1:47) - 3:34.9 total. We ran some more to cool down, then I ran another mile with Joseph. So Jacob did 1 mile, and Joseph did 2. Jenny and Julia ran 2 miles. I ran some more to make it 12 total. P.M. 0.7 with Benjamin.
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