Jim Arquilla Long Beach Relays

Now that track season is upon us that means meets throughout the week and on Saturdays. Today my son attended the Jim Arquilla Long Beach Relay and participated in the discus and shot put.

He has been slowly increasing his throwing distance and did a great job today. His first event was the discus at 9am, which turned out to be more around 10am as he was in the second flight. He was very consistant and threw his best throws ever today and increased his personal best by 7' from 124' to 131' and taking 3rd place for his varsity team.

Here are a few shots of him in action. I have to say that I truly love watching him throw. He walks into the ring looking out over the horizon. He then hits the toes of his shoes on the ground behind as he picks a focus point in the horizon. After a deep breath he turns away from the field and prepares his throw. He twists his body to the right, as if chambering, and then untwist as he spins and jumps to the edge of the ring and throw. He watches intently as the discus flies and hits the field. He knows immediately if it was a good throw or bad throw and shows it with his expression as he exits the ring.

Next was the shot put, which wasn't scheduled until 2pm. So we left the facilty and had some lunch with my son's girl friend and her mom and dad. After a nice lunch we returned to the college. While we waited for the shot put event to start I wandered around taking other action shots.

Now once the event started I did what I normally do, took pictures, but this time I was really trying to time my shots just right to get the shot put just after the release. I was very pleased with this shot, even though the shot put is slightly cut off along the top. My son increased his personal best from 41' to 43', but did not place. Either way I'm very proud of him and am looking forward to the next meet.
Various discus shots.

Some various shot put shots.

While waiting for my son's second event (shot put) to start, I took a walk to the other end of the track to see what was going on at the pole vault and high jump area. As it turned out both events were just about completed with the last few people jumping.

I was able to capture to jumpers for the boys varsity high jump. This first young man was on his last jump and missed, which dissapointed me. He had very nice technique and jumped in such a way that made a great action shot, as you can see by my one and only capture of him on his last jump.

The second young man made his jump, which gave a me a few more opportunites to get some nice shots of him. This was my favorite out of the few I took.

One of the few pole vaulting shots I was able to get. The sky was a terrible gray overcast that really made it hard for metering. I tried to balance the two so I didn't get too much of a blown out sky and dark athletes.

These last three shots demand to have their story told. This young lady was the last varsity girl to be jumping. She had just cleared 10.5' and was preparing for her personal best of 11'. You could feel the excitement from the coaches and other athletes who gathered to watch, which included her father who was very excited. I overheard that he promised his daughter $100 if she was to make 11'. Well, needless to say she cleared it and after landing on the mat she quickly jumped off and ran to her father, who was already running to her. I kept my camera trained on the young lady as she ran to her dad, but my view was obstructed by all of the people who game to watch, but as she and her dad met I had an unobstructed view of them and took the last two shots as she jumped into her dad's arms. I felt as if I was intruding on a very personal moment between a father and his daughter. I think the last two shots will say that.