You probably thought this was going to be a cute Halloween post...
About a month & a half ago Troy started talking about signing our family up for a race. He was pretty much the only one who thought that was a good idea. But, after some convincing and cajoling, Henry and I agreed. Eli, like the stubborn little person he is, stood his ground and emphatically said "NO!" With that, we signed up for a "Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear" race, which means Troy was going to run a 10k (6.2 miles), I was going to run a 5k (3.1 miles) and Henry was going to run a 1k (0.6 miles).
Now, if you know me, you know that I'm not a runner. Sure, I'm athletic and did sports in high school but cross country was not one of them. I mostly stuck to the 100 and 200 meter distances. And while I do run on the treadmill for exercise, I by no means enjoy it. Troy, on the other hand, is a runner - always has been always will be. He runs a long way really fast. Henry likes to run and he's fast but it's mostly around the yard or to play tag with his buddies so this was going to be his first try running a race. So, this race has been a big topic of conversation in our house since we registered. Mostly me complaining or Henry deciding to not run it. I'm not sure I'd say it brought us closer as a family. <--- just kidding ;-)
Troy and I both did some training - mostly on the treadmill but we did venture outside for a run or two before the race. And we measured out a 1k route around our neighborhood for Henry so he could train too. Troy took him on a couple of runs, which went really well - they ran pretty fast. But Henry wasn't super interested in the training thing and regularly said no when we asked him to go. Oh well - we knew he could do it.
We knew there were going to be a couple of obstacles on race day - the fact that it was trail running and the fact that it was probably going to be pretty cold. Turns out we were right on both counts. The trails weren't in great shape so that made it difficult. And, it was under 40F during the 10k and the start of the 5k. When you're running that's not bad but when you're the people standing around waiting it's pretty cold.
Here's our Baby Bear when we got there. Henry only agreed to do the race on one condition - that he could wear a sweatband! And he really wanted it to be red, white and blue stripes. I went to every store I could think of but no one had them in stock. So I ended up with this NBA one - which has all the colors on it, just not striped. I got another one too that was just red and white. He loves the sweatbands and wears them around the house a lot. He's really looking forward to wearing them to basketball practice too because that's what the professionals wear.
Here's Papa Bear finishing is 10k. Troy did a terrific job - finishing a little over 44 minutes. His goal was 47 minutes. We were really proud of him! To run that much faster on a crappy trail with mud, rocks, hills, water and (most of all!) piles of horse crap is amazing!!
Mama Bear finishing the 5k. The race wasn't super great for me. I thought the trail was difficult to run and got a side cramp toward the middle of mile 2 that I had to deal with. And while I secretly was hoping to finish closer to 30 minutes I knew realistically I'd probably finish in 34-36 minutes. Anyway, I finished in a little over 33 minutes. I'm happy with that. I know to the runners out there that's super slow but for me, it was decent.
Here's our boy - happily (and maybe a little anxiously) awaiting the start of his race. He totally rocked that sweatband! But you'll notice it's a different sweatband than he arrived with. Sometime during my 5k he lost the NBA one so I'm really glad that I brought this one along too. It turned out that this really wasn't a 1k race. They just set up cones for a little course around the finish line area. It was maybe a 0.5k, maybe. Plus it was crowded and they were running on grass. It was terribly unorganized - not the experience I was hoping for for him.
Here's Henry rounding the first turn. He was running really fast and trying to pass these little kids in costume. Right after I took this picture he tried to go around them by going off the course a bit up on the hill and tripped and fell. He just looked up and started to cry - poor little monkey. But we got him up and dusted him off and even though he didn't want to finish I ran the rest with him.
Here we are at the finish line - you can see how not happy he is to be finishing. But they handed out candy and a ribbon to all the kids, which helped some. Troy also (unbeknownst to Henry) slipped a medal around his neck that we had brought for him. Henry was really hoping he'd get a medal but this race wasn't handing them out except to the winners of the 10k and 5k. So I ran out to a trophy store and bought one. That medal turned the experience around for him. He was so happy and proud!
You know what? It was really fun. Not necessarily the running part (for me or Henry) but the whole experience of having a shared goal to work toward, talk about, train for. Spending the morning together cheering each other on. Celebrating our personal victories together. And I know I'll regret this but I think this is something we could do again as a family. And maybe next time Eli might be willing to try too. And maybe next time we can pick a race where we don't need winter coats to keep warm...
