Outdoor Activities on A Beautiful Satuday in October

After the wettest September and almost daily rains in first three weeks of October, we finally got a break this weekend! It happened to be a perfect timing for a community event, this past Saturday. An event focused on athletic activities  - competition in  tracks, volleyball and Tug-and-war. I did not register for the event but in the end, at Friday evening, I agreed to participate because my college local alumni association was short of people participating in 40 x 400 relay.

Saturday, October 20th started brilliantly - bright sun shine, blue sky dotted with white patches of clouds. We went to grocery shopping first, and I then did some house chores - vacuum cleaning floors, tidy the house.

After a late lunch I drove to the track fields at the local high school where the event was held. I arrived at the event at ~ 3pm, there was a volley match going on, and 1500 meter competitions for man and woman were about to start. There were about a hundred people at the event that time.

After wandering around a bit taking pictures of 1500 m races, I helped with the tug-of-war competition judging. Six teams participated in a format of elimination by best of 3 matches. This was the most engaging and exciting game of the day, and all people got involved! My team won all games and was the championship team! Next two competitions were 4 x 400 and 40 x 400. I ran for both races for our team, adding 4 x 400 since a 400 m runner was too tired from the 400 m individual competition.

Despite regularly running 5000 m, 400 m dash was a challenge to me, the run uses different muscles, and my cadence was low. After total of 1600 m in 4 runs (400m each) during the relays, my thigh muscles were tired, and I strained to walk! However I am glad that I went to the community event, got to know a few more people, enjoyed the beautiful outdoor, and the team spirit was priceless!

start of man's 1500 meter run

Tug-of-war - Championship team

our team