Truly Be a Jamaican Flash

Nikolas on left, Daniel on right

Daniel Tulloch ran in the Region 2 USA Track and Field Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships today, Nov. 20, 2011 at Dear Path Park, 120 West Woodschurch Rd. Flemington, New Jersey. Six year old Daniel ran the 1.26 mile (2K) in 10 Minutes and 42.29 seconds. Twenty-Seven boys ages 8 to 6 participated in this race. Fifteen boys were 8 year olds; ten boys were 7 years old, while 2 were six years old.

He is now the 20^th seed in the region. Region 2 covers the area from Eastern Ohio, Northern West Virginia, Western New York to Delaware and New Jersey. Daniel qualified to participate in the National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships on Sunday, December 10, 2011 at Whispering Pines Golf Course in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Only 20 people in his group qualified to go to Nationals.

Today's course had a low grade hill that ran about one half of a mile. The rest of the course had rolling wooded hills and valleys. The meet director claimed that this course was easy. But if you compare the results of this meet for all participants against their association times (far right), all times in this meet were slower than the first meet.

The start of the 2K race.

The finish of the 2K race.

Daniel on left and Nikolas on right

We have been working to get Daniel to the point where he could place in the top 3 spots but in this meet, we fell short. We are going to have to break that bad habit of his where he turns around to see who is following him. Toward the finish line today he almost stopped like he was waiting for the bus to come instead of finishing the race.

Nikolas Toocheck of West Chester, Pa. age 8 became eighth seed and Noah Shepherd of Juniata Valley, Pa. age 8 became 15^th seed. Both of them ran against Daniel in the Mid-Atlantic Association Meet two weeks ago. Mr. Toocheck, Nikolas father told me something that I keep forgetting. He told me that Daniel is only 6 years old while most of the other boys are 2 years older than him. When Daniel becomes 8 years old, he will truly be a Jamaican Flash.

David has started his training



David decided that he was going to start training with his brother. The problem, he is only 15 months old. He just started walking a few months ago. So he has his turn on the tread mill when Daniel is resting between sessions. In this video David is upset because we hold on to him while he is on the treadmill. He does not want help. But the treadmill is no place for a 15 month old by himself.