Long Beach Middle School Cross Country Championships

 This is late as all my posts are becoming, a habit I really need to stop.

During the early part of June each year Long Beach holds the middle school cross country championships at Heartwell Park and for the last few years I've covered this event for them.

This event consists of 7 actual races.  Its started with an elementary fun run followed by the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade girls and boys races.

When I cover these events I like to shoot and get shots from three different locations.  The first being at the start of the race.  As the race starts, the lead runners go through a group of trees that then open up.  I wait for the lead runners to emerge from these trees and get shots of them approaching me and then as they pass.

Once the runners pass through this first area I then quickly move to my second location.  In this area the runners come across a bridge as they approach the end of mile one from this two mile run.  I pick this second location because the runners are back lit and I enjoy the shots I get as the sun glows through the runners hair.

My final spot is at the finish line.  Normally and in the past I've choose a spot right at the finish, but during the last couple of races, mostly the 8th grade girls and boys I had issues with low light with a bright background that always gave me problems, so this year I decided to move away from the finish line to a spot about 10-15' in front of it.  I still had issues with back lighting, but have since moved to auto ISO, which has helped me a lot.

With all this said, please enjoy the following shots.

Middle School Cross Country Championships

 This past Friday the Long Beach Middle Schools held their cross country championship at Heartwell Park in Lakewood.  Its an event I enjoy to cover as I get a chance to see a lot of young faces I know I will see over the next few years competing at the high school level.

This event usually starts with the 4th and 5th grade kids racing a shorter version of the race, which is followed by six races, the girls 6th grade, boys 6th grade, girls 7th grade, boys 7th grade, girls 8th grade, and then finally the boys 8th grade race.

I wasn't sure of the start time so I headed to the park right after work and got there just as the 4th and 5th grade race started, so I did miss that one,but I know the route they run so I was ready at the start of the 6th grade girls race.

A little side note - once I got home and began uploading all of my shots one of my cards failed on me.  It was the card that had the whole 8th grade girls race on it.  Not sure what the issue was, but my computer wouldn't acknowledge it and I tried two different card readers.  I also put the card back in the camera hoping I could transfer the photos that way, but even my camera said there was an error and would read the card anymore.  Not sure what I can do at this point as recovery would only be good if I could open the card on my computer.  I do have a couple of other things I can try though.

In the meantime here are a bunch of shots from the races.

Starting off with the boys 6th grade race.

Below are some shots from the girls 6th grade race

 

Below start the boys 7th grade race.

Followed by the girls 7th grade race.

And ending with the boys 8th grade race.

Long Beach Middle School Cross Country

This past Friday Long Beach Unified School District held their middle school cross country event at Heartwell  Park and I was there to capture all of the excitement.  Its always a pleasure shooting these kids in action.  Look at these shots and tell me what you see, I see kids giving it their all and having fun.  For me, that's what shooting youth sports is all about.

 

The event started at just after 4pm with a 4th grade run followed with a 5th grade run.  At 5pm the main events started with the 6th grade girls followed by the 6th grade boys.  This continued with the 7th grade (girls / boys) and 8th grade (girls / boys), which started at 7pm.

 

Normally this cross country meet is held on Saturday mornings, but this year it was changed to Friday evenings, which gave me a whole different type of light to work and play with.  Well I simply went with the flow and worked with the light.

 

Hope you like the different look in these shots.