A very sporty September

Sooo it's true that I am not generally known for my athleticism, but in marrying Chuck and proceeding to have three sons, I've accepted that a decent portion of my life will revolve around sports - and never is this as evident as in the fall. We definitely spent a lot of the month watching football, cheering for Boise State on the collegiate level and booing the replacement refs on the professional level, but we were also able to participate in some sporting activity as well!

It started with Chuck's softball game at work early in the month, where a team from the juvenile detention took on a team from the juvenile probation in a one game, winner-take-all annual showdown. 

The combination of the setting sun, the fence, and my attempts to keep tabs on three children resulted in this being the best action shot of the game (Chuck's out there somewhere, I promise)

but luckily I captured lots of the off-field fun.

The field/bleachers blessedly backed up to a dirt haven for little boys and Clyde and Will (and some of the other kids) took full advantage.

Clyde took occasional breaks from the dirt to impress Roderick with his use of the Force on Chuck.

This is Chuck watching the game alongside detention boss Terry, whose impressive skills proved invaluable on the softball field. Pretty sure he hit at least two homers.

A strong showing by all the detention staff led to them winning the game, woooo! I was pretty confident that this would be the result since the probation team had matching sky blue shirts and years of watching sports movies has taught me that the ragtag, mismatched 'underdog' team always wins.

Here's the official picture that Chuck customized and took to display in the break room at work. (He may have also hung one in a different break room frequented by probation staff...). This was the ninth detention victory in the eleven years this rivalry game has been played, hence the '9' being thrown up by most of the players. (Also, my underdog assumption was possibly untrue).

September also marked the beginning of the soccer season - for BOTH older boys this year!

We were bummed not to retain any of Clyde's previous teammates this year, but he's fitting in really well with his new team, the 'Avengers'. (Clyde might have been the one to suggest that name...)

Coach Rob is really helping Clyde be an aggressive player on offense (in addition to keeping his defensive skills sharp) and he's scored quite a few goals already in the first half of the season.

A few more action shots of our Clyde Monster - the league changed the uniforms this year; each team has two jerseys and plays in blue at 'home' and green when 'away' (relative terms since they play on the exact same field each week, haha). I love the new policy since it means jerseys can be reused from year-to-year and passed on to younger brothers!

We decided to sign Will up to play but were nervous about how he would do, so I decided to vounteer as his team's coach. I totally lucked out and have an awesome team - five darling boys and one even more darling girl. The only downside is that at first glance, all five boys look remarkably interchangeable - Will included!

Hence this shot of me right before the first game doing a last minute chant in my head of their names and numbers together "Dallen-seven, Rylan-two, Garrett-three, Nolan-five, Will-four" over and over. Bless Elizabeth and her cute ponytail; I always know who number six is!

I've really enjoyed being 'Coach Jana' this year after kind of figuring out what I was doing last spring. I joke that what I lack in soccer knowledge I make for in enthusiasm and since my team this year is stacked with kids that played last year and totally know what they're doing, I can excel as the on-field cheerleader :).

Will is still deciding how he feels about playing soccer - it's a week-to-week call on if he even wants to play in the game (so far it's been two and two). His teammates and their parents are all really sweet and supportive of him, which I appreciate so much as a parent.

And finally, I nervously laced up my Asics...es... and ran another 5k in September!

Pre-race picture - can you tell how scared I was? My running over the summer has been hit-and-miss (at least once a week, but sometimes only that) and this run's course included a semi-formidable hill in the middle that gave me pause as I contemplated registering for the race. Fortunately, I'm unable to resist peer pressure in pretty much any form, so when Tasha asked me if I was going to run it, I said sure. And I'm so glad I did!

If Tasha was the one to get me to the race, Emily was the one who got me through it. I found out just a couple of days prior that she was running it too so we went together and ran the whole thing!

Before/during/after shots of the two of us - I seriously would have stopped and walked a couple of times if she hadn't been with me, thanks for being an awesome running buddy Em!

This picture is when we're about a third of a mile from the finish line (it loops around, that nice runner in yellow is almost finished). I was SO excited to see the person taking this picture and it totally gave me the motivation I needed to finish the race strong and even sprint the end - any guesses as to who it was?

HOLLY! Even though she wasn't able to run with me that morning, she still came out to support me and cheer for me (and photograph me!) and it meant SO much. Love you Holl. A lot.

Aaaand just for fun, here's the video from KTVB's 'finish line cam'. Emily and I run through at about 1:18. Because the starting line was staggered by color waves (first red, then yellow, then blue, etc), we crossed the finish line 41 minutes and 18 seconds into the race but only 31 minutes and 18 seconds after we started since we were in the blue wave... if that makes any sense :).

 

And thus concludes the run-down of our athletic endeavors in September. Here's to a much more sedate October!