Ten girls dashed from behind the John Amos Field House. Their objective: beat assistant track instructor Alex Barrett to the flag on the soccer field. The girls—propelled partly by the motivating pep-talk on “purpose” they had just received from track instructor Jordan Ellis and partly by the incentive of receiving two tickets if they won—hurled themselves toward the field, but despite their most valiant efforts, the girls could not overtake Mr. Barrett.

Once the girls of 2G reached the soccer green, Mr. Ellis explained the first activity of the class: a relay. One at a time, the girls would run towards the long jump. After landing, they were to run down the hill before throwing the shot put, javelin and discus. Once they successfully launched their projectiles, the course led them back onto the field where they were to run around assistant track instructor Cathryn Bancroft and pass a baton to the next girl in line.

Megan started the race. After safely sticking her jump, she bolted down the hill while her dormmates waited for her to reappear. After her head resurfaced above the grass, her dorm shouted and cheered her name until she passed the baton to Shira.

Ella made scaling the steep hill seem effortless, and she maintained speed until she handed the baton to Evelyn. Evelyn started toward the long jump sand pit but, in her hurry, she tripped. This small setback could not stop her, however, and she immediately recovered all the speed and enthusiasm she had started with. Peruvian camper, Annie, finished the race, and though she had not yet been instructed in most of the events, she took off with an enormous smile that she maintained throughout the entire activity.

As the girls took a water break, the staff calculated scores. The success of the relay was measured in both speed and distance. Distance was calculated by adding the girls’ combined scores in the long jump, javelin, shot put, and discus throw. The girls’ total speed was 15.23 minutes, missing the standing record by just over two minutes.

Though the 40-yard dash is not an event in this year’s track meet, Mr. Ellis offered to let the girls run it during class. Ella, Megan, and Annie gladly volunteered. After a brief warm-up round, Ella, with a time of 5.8 seconds, flew across the field and shattered the standing record.

While some remained at the 40-yard dash, Michaela, Evelyn, Faith, Tori, and Shira decided to try their aim with the javelin. Tori stuck the javelin in the hard-packed dirt with a distance of 43.5 feet. And, though the sharp object fell over immediately afterwards, it was a competition-qualifying throw. Jokingly, she narrated the situation to her dormmate: “Savannah looked on in awe as Tori threw the javelin into the sun.” Try as she might, Tori never quite managed to throw the javelin into the sun.

Meanwhile, Brennah and Sophia practiced throwing the discus. The girls took turns standing in the painted ring by the field and launching the rubber disk. With help from some of the staff, the girls were able to improve their discus-throwing abilities.

After practicing their events of choice, the girls walked back to the field house where they huddled in a circle and screamed in excitement. Annie and Sophia were pushed into the middle of the noisy ring and awarded tickets for their effort and positive attitudes. Then they assembled once more into their circle and thanked the track staff with another enthusiastic cheer. “You put the ‘aww’ in awesome!” the track staff responded as 2G raced to dinner.