West Potomac High School hosted their annual Running is Elementary Track Meet on May 6th and 13th for the local elementary schools in the West Potomac pyramid. This year, the meets were separated into a Kindergarten-2nd grade meet and a 3rd-6th grade meet. The participating schools were Fort Hunt, Belle View, Waynewood, Stratford, Bucknell, and Hollin Meadows.
The May 6th event had all schools ages kindergarten through second grade participating. The runners got to choose three events each to compete in: 100m, 200m, and 400m dashes, the 4x100m relay, the standing broad jump, and the softball toss. The 3rd through 6th grade meet was supposed to be on May 9th but got pushed back to May 13th because of a conflict with a district soccer game. The older grades could also choose three events each to compete in but had a wider range of events to choose from. The events at the meet were the 100m, 200m, and 400m dashes, the 55m hurdles, the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, the 800m 1600m runs, the long jump, and the softball toss.
The West Potomac track athletes went to the participating schools once a week for several weeks prior to the final meets and worked with the elementary students to prepare for their competition. The events were organized and run by West Potomac track & field athletes along with some assistance from volunteer parents from the participating elementary schools and a few former West Potomac track & field athletes. Waynewood Elementary School had several strong performances and had the most participants out of all the schools. Fort Hunt and Stratford also had strong participation and every school had a bunch of fast runners. There were high school level times being put up on the boards by some of the 5th and 6th graders.
The event is to encourage future West Potomac students to be active and run and potentially convince them to join West Potomac Track & Field when they get here. The event also raises money for the track team.
