Cultural Exchange

We’ve made it through the first week of school, Shelly back working on her Master’s degree, me working my fulltime contract as well as trying to squeeze in some work on an old project that needs a bit of finishing and, as of yesterday, Laurin’s first cross country meet.

According to the schedule he got on his first day of practice, the meet on Saturday was supposed to be in Decorah, IA, with a bus leaving at 5:30am. However, on Friday night, he came home with the news that the IA meet wasn’t going to happen and that there’d be one here in town instead.

So, yesterday morning, we made our way through the cool September fog to the Zane Ave Sports Complex where a swarm of kids in green, black and gold uniforms were surrounded by lots of other parents, holding on tightly to their cups of coffee for warmth.

At minutes before 8:00am, the boys gathered, formed a circle and gave a loud pirate yell. Minutes later, Coach Bauer fired the starting pistol and Laurin started his first competitive run for cross country in the midst of the pack, running through the dew-soaked grass.

The boys quickly disappeared out of sight as they followed the course laid out for them around the entire sports complex for 2 km on their first lap. By the time they completed that first circuit, they had spread out considerably, with Laurin pretty much right in the middle.

As they disappeared a 2nd time, the parents all headed to the finish line, where the giant black pirate flag and coached waited for the runners to finish the 4km run.

Laurin finished with a time of 17:33. We’re very proud of how well he did, especially with only 4 days of training beforehand. He still has some stuff to iron out with his uniform (which didn’t fit and caused problems during the run), but seemed to already be in the groove with the team.

After all of the boys crossed the finish line, the girls started their race. I was happy to see that the boys team all went as a group to cheer the girls on at the midway point and eventually the finish line. In many sports, that wouldn’t have happened and really reinforced the things Coach Bauer told us about this team being a really good group of kids.

After the race, there was a brunch potluck at Oak Grove Park. Due to the short notice, we had to scramble and picked up some bagels and cream cheese at Cub, which joined tons of other donuts, coffee cake, muffins, yogurt, egg bakes and other food on several picnic tables.

When the kids started in on the food, it was a good thing no one was in the way as they devoured that food.

Fortunately, there was still plenty for the parents and everyone socialized for an hour or so before we headed home.

I did grab some video of the race and will post it as soon as we get the camera and the computer on speaking terms.