The other day I posted a few pics I took at the start of the Kyoto City Half Marathon, but that wasn't my first marathon photo session this month. A week prior, Anthony's preschool had its “Marathon Games” event, where the kids ran around a lot and I took 841 pictures. (No, don't worry, I won't post them all here 🙂 )

That a group of four-year-olds are sitting quietly is amazing enough, but in Anthony's case, all the more so because he's sitting beside Kana. Anthony and Kana don't play together any more or any less than they play with other kids, but it seems that they really know how to press each other's silly buttons, and as such, they're usually pretty photogenic together, as evidenced in previous posts: Riding a Mini Steam Locomotive and Anthony Staying In Line, With Kana and Anthony Getting Out of Line.

In retrospect, it's probably because he was starting to feel the effects of a cold that he came down with a day or two later. Much of the school was out with the flu the next week, and it took out no small number of moms, too (including Anthony's).

The “event” was basically a bunch of running up and down a 40-yard stretch of the park, getting the card around their necks stamped with each round trip.

At 8.4 meters (28 feet) away, the depth of field in the picture above is just 3.8 inches on either side of focus. I love the visual isolation that this lens (Nikon 70-200/2.8 VR) can provide, especially when it can focus correctly.

After about 10 or 15 minutes of running, they paused for a while, then some went out again, and Anthony seemed to have somewhat of a second wind. I don't remember whether the picture above was when he was running full tilt, or running like a silly monkey. Probably the latter.

Actually, the other side of his card had 17 stamps, so if my geoencoded-photo-assisted guess at an 80-yard round trip is correct, his 24 circus yields 1.1 miles. Impressive, indeed! (Although not as impressive as one of Anthony's young friend's run last month.)