Perri: Built for Speed

This is Perri.

She is 12 and in 7th grade this year.

She has spent most of her life doing this.

And this.


She is still playing softball, but last year, due to some lower back, hip and pelvis alignment issues, she was forced to quit her gymnastics team. She was a training Level 7. If you're unfamiliar with the sport, this means that she had been tumbling, doing bars, vaulting and balancing on a 4" wide beam for many years and spent more time in the gym than out of it. She was at the point where she was there at least 5 days a week, sometimes 6. In other words, gymnastics was a HUGE part of her life. Quitting was difficult and painful. For both of us.

To ease the pain of quitting the team (she still takes a tumbling class once a week...it was just the constant stress of long hours in the gym that aggravated her problems) we told her that she could try other things. She'd always enjoyed softball and there are lots of other sports out there she could try! It'll be fun!
We'd be right there, cheering her on!

So she announces that has chosen to try out for the track team.


SERIOUSLY?

I mean, nothing against track, but....

Well, yeah I suppose it IS something against track.

Track meets last for days. They're not all that exciting. Chances are good she'll only do one or two events but we'll have to sit through the whole thing.

Still, I will do this for my girl. And I sincerely hope she enjoys it. REALLY.

I just hope that her first day of practice is no indication of the way the rest of the season will go.

You see, some days they practice at the high school. This means she must catch a different bus after school than the one she rides home each evening. Her usual bus is a second run bus, meaning it gets there after the first batch of buses pulls out. The bus she must ride to the high school is first run. This means she has to get with the program when she leaves her last class. She must get to the parking lot and onto the bus QUICKLY. Maybe even RUN to get there.

After all, she IS trying out for the track team.

I imagine you know what happened. The very first day, she missed the bus.


Her vice principal happened to be going that way, so she offered her a ride.

Imagine the humiliation.

Even better... imagine when she came home, told us what happened, then proceeded to tell us they had determined that she wasn't cut out for distance, so she'd be running speed events.