Cross Country race @ Aranui School

Lindsay took first place in her school's cross country race a couple weeks ago, and though she is not enamored with cross country racing, she was honored to then be invited to take part in the all-area cross country race for 10-12 year olds at the Aranui School in Castlecliff, just west of Wanganui and out by the ocean.

The race was yesterday - it was blustery, but pretty sunny - and I went out as intrepid reporter to take some film and describe the action.

The course was a pretty rugged 1.5 Km layout - it started in a horse field adjacent to the school, went back into the school grounds and then went out into the hills/dunes that surround the school grounds.  There was even a fence jumping spot and small muddy pit to go through.  From my vantage spots (at the starting line, at a mid-point, and then near the finish line) I took video and am dropping that in here.  Here is the start.

And here is a mid-point...

Unfortunately the video I have of the finish line was too large to drop in here : (

A couple of interesting cultural things at the race.  One, the area is truly bi-racial - split fairly evenly between people of European and Maori background.  The race was somewhat bi-lingual - more predominantly English, but as you may hear from the videos, there is definitely some Maori being spoken.  And the school is located in a predominantly Maori area.  But the starter gave her instruction in English only.  Kids here are expected to understand English, but, at the same time, English speaking kids are supposed to be open to hearing some instruction and cultural information in Maori.  The attempt by the government and local schools to incorporate Maori and English together is pretty fascinating (after being here longer and having a better understanding of this I hope to write more.)

Second thing to notice is that more than half of the kids were running barefooted.  And this was not exactly perfect barefoot conditions - they were going through farmland (think manure) and then also through some areas that has gorse and prickles.  Lindsay said a bunch of the kids were getting prickles in their feet but would just pull them out and weren't crying despite some obvious pain/discomfort - one kid had one that was about an inch long.  Ah, they are tougher than the average kid apparently.  Of the first 30 or so kids who finished, probably only 4 or 5 had shoes.  Interestingly, of the final 30 or so finishers, I bet only 5 didn't have shoes (so the barefoot kids were on average much faster, at least in this race.)

For info purposes, Lindsay finished seventh out of the 120 or so kids that day, so she got a special brownie from her coach for being the first Top 10 finisher in five years for her school.  What a fun day for the girls of Carlton School...here they are...