Movement

Heidi and I ran the Butte to Butte today. We were the only ones doing so. Oh, that's right, it's not until July 4th! Well, we ran it because I suggested starting to practice for the downhill portion of the run. I must say when we arrived at the start of the course,  I had my own bit of fun knowing she did not know the route.  The beginning of the race appears to be a little stretch of road, then a little bump of a hill. In actuality, it keeps going up and up until there's such a steep part that one can walk more easily than run. Then it's down and down the hill. Mind you, it's not very steep, but I have to "pace" myself because I am someone who gets side aches on the downhill easily (Oh, I would love to practice my new technique of running like the roadrunner-quick turnovers barely touching the ground-it's fast. But my side aches remind me to be conservative). So I survived the hill, and now I want to know how fast(or should I say how much more than slower) I can go down the hill without keeling over. 

That was this morning, well, early morning. This Saturday, was the last day of Spring soccer for the Family Soccer Organization. Our friends came up with the idea of playing as "families" rather than individual family members playing on various teams, needing to practice more than once a week, all throughout the city. It's simple. A parent from each family plays soccer with the kids. Instead of just sitting on the sideline chatting, we join in. Now, sometimes I mix chatting and playing, but today I mostly played, and what fun!

{I'd love to show some photos from today's soccer game, but when I went to take some video of the event, I realized that I broke the video camera's battery at Disney World. It was a tight fit for the video cam and the digital cam to fit in our camera case, but if I took the battery off the video cam, it fit quite nicely. Well, we had pulled it out once to film, and when I was manipulating everything to fit, it kinda sorta fell on the ground. It was dinged, and looked OK, but it didn't work. I'd forgotten my faux pas, and only brought the video to soccer today}. 

So I just have to randomly describe what happens on the field...

The play looks a lot like swarm ball, especially if the adults get in the thick of the kids to try and get the ball away from them. It's not quite fair, but it is fun to get into the swarm, let them kick it back and forth between you and the kid, and then see who gets the ball. Mind you, 99% of the time, somehow the kid gets the ball. It wouldn't seem fair that the 40 year old always took the ball away from the little kids.

Then there's the comments from the kids, "Oh, you kicked that funny." 

 I said to one of the girls, "Hey, you're guarding me?" She replied, "Yes, I am" with a "Bring it On" attitude as she darted back and forth before our throw-in.

Tegan, as kids coach running down the sidelines, "That's it, that's it, that's it."

Then there were the random plays of the adults trying not to squish the kids. That's interesting trying not to run over a child, especially when you start running from behind them, and they come to a sudden, unpredictable stop. I had some near misses during the season, as one of the boys liked to slide tackle. Today, I tried to actually kick the ball with some umph, for the goal, but kicked it straight on into one of the smaller, say five year old's, chest. He didn't cry though.

Neither did I.

What's also fun is watching the adults try and hold back when they have a clear shot of goal. We have a three touch rule, as the adults team has to kick it three times to each other before they can shoot the goal, and they have to start the count over if a kid kicks the ball. Well, it takes some effort for the adults to do so, as the kid's team had twelve today, and we had about six. 

With this being our third year(?) at this, I encourage all families to forgo paying all those sports fees, and give their own FSO a go.