うたぴょんスポーツThis one isn't race day. It's the day before — the quiet practice before the prefectural meet, where the nerves start to show up a little and the body has to do the last bit of work.
Uta is 9, born early in 2016, so she's one of the younger kids in her grade group. She's been building up all year, and this clip is her getting '整いました' — set, ready — for the next day's meet.
How the day went
The video doesn't show a big stadium or a crowd. It's a normal practice, the kind where you run through everything one more time before it counts. Uta works through throwing, jumping, and running — the three things she needed to feel sharp on for the prefectural meet the next day.
She's in good form lately. She's been ranked 10th nationally in the 1000m for third-grade girls for the 2024 season, so the speed is there. What this session was about was making sure the other events — the ones that don't come as naturally to a distance runner — were ready too.
You can tell from the title alone that she felt good. 'Throw, jump, run — track and field is fun!' isn't the kind of thing you say the night before a big meet if you're dreading it. That's the main thing I took from watching this back: she wasn't anxious, she was excited.
The session itself
The specific event she's aiming for at the prefectural meet is the javelick ball throw — a safer, ball-based version of the javelin used at this age group. The goal, as she put it, is to make the top finishers this time.
In the practice, she cycles through all three disciplines. The throwing work is clearly where her focus was, since that's the event on the schedule the next day. But she doesn't skip the jumping or the running either — at 9, everything is still connected. A better jump helps the throw. A sharp sprint start helps everything.
There's no result in this video, because the meet hadn't happened yet. What's here is the rehearsal — the last tune-up before she lines up for real.
What I took from it
Watching this as her dad, what stood out wasn't the technique. It was the mood. The night before a prefectural meet can go two ways for a kid — tight and worried, or loose and looking forward to it. Uta was the second one.
I think that comes from doing the work steadily rather than cramming it in at the last second. She'd already put in the training. This session was just about feeling ready, not about trying to fix something at the eleventh hour.
What I want to keep saying to her, meet after meet, isn't 'win' or 'place'. It's closer to what she already said herself — that this is fun. Throwing a ball as far as you can, jumping as far as you can, running as fast as you can — if that still feels like play at 9, the results tend to take care of themselves.
The prefectural meet itself is the next chapter — we'll see how the javelick ball throw actually went in a future video. For now, this one is just Uta, the day before, set and ready.
Video: '【県大会前日】整いました！投げて跳んで走って！陸上楽しい！！'