Over the weekend, I picked up a new running partner — my twelve year old son! After floating the idea past my wife, I approached my son and he was thrilled. We’re not actually running together right now, as our weekday schedules aren’t compatible, but we’re both training for a local Memorial Day 5k.
Given the time constraints, he’s jumped ahead to Week Four of the C25K running program (one week behind me). This means that he’ll “graduate” right before Memorial Day weekend, just in time to run the race with me.
Jumping ahead isn’t much of a stretch, as he’s in the midst of soccer season and has been running a decent amount at practice and in games. It’ll be interesting to see if he keeps up with it, but running a race with Dad (and without his brothers) is a pretty big carrot.
Though I’m using Robert Ullrey’s podcasts for running along with RunKeeper, I bought him a copy of the C25K app for his iPod Touch. Like me, he loves him some gadgets, and the C25K app will allow him to track his progress while listening to his own music.
I’ve also offered to pay any entry fees for races that he wants to run. Right now, he has his sights set squarely on Memorial Day so he can earn the free t-shirt (and the associated bragging rights) before a June trip to visit family.
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That is awesome! I can’t wait to run a race with one of my kids (5 and 3) We are running the 400m fun run on May 1st though, so that should be fun!
That is so great. My 3 year old is a bit slow yet!