Over the weekend, I ran a 5k with our eight and twelve year old. All in all, we had a blast, and I was very impressed with both of them. For our eight year old, it was his very first race, and he performed admirably.
During the race, my wife hung back with our five year old. For those that can count, you’ll note that I only mentioned three of our four boys. That’s because our ten year old opted out and slept over at a friend’s house.
Rushing out the door
We had planned to leave about an hour before the race to give us plenty of time to register, warm up, etc. Shortly after pouring myself a bowl of cereal, however, I looked at the race paperwork and discovered that it was scheduled to start 30 minutes earlier than anticipated.
We all dropped what we were doing, got ready in a flash, and jumped in the car. We ended up getting down to the race more or less on time, though I only ate about one bite of breakfast and barely had time to take a few sips of water.
We had to rush through our warmups a bit, but were feeling pretty good about things when the race started. This race was in the same general area as our first 5k, though the course rather different.
And they’re off…
As we lined up, I could tell that our eight year old was totally excited. He’d been looking forward to the day for weeks, and he had a cool confidence about him.
When I asked if he wanted me to run with him, he said “No, I’m fine. You can just run at your own pace.” I think that both of use were expecting me to be fast than him. Guess what? We were both wrong.
The race was essentially an out-and-back that started out by heading down (down, down, down) toward the river. Of course, that meant we’d have to go up (up, up, up) to get back to the finish.
It was 7:30 AM, but the temp was already getting close to 80° and the humidity was hovering around 75%. Yuck. Oh well, at least it was early. It later got to 99° with a heat index nearing 110°.
Falling behind
Shortly after we took off, our twelve year old announced that he was going ahead. No problem, I thought. He’d been threatening to “own” me all week, and he’s much better than me on hills, so I expected him to pull away at some point.
The middle section of the course was overlooking the river, so there was a decent view. Unfortunately, it was far from flat. Our eight year old was doing a fantastic job and, according to RunKeeper, we were moving at a decent pace (around 9:45/mile).
As we neared the turnaround point, however, he started pulling away from me. I wasn’t sure what to think, but I let him go. I halfway expected to catch back up to him on the final hill, but I didn’t see him again until the finish line.
As I expected, the hill at the end was a killer, but I kept moving and got through it. My twelve year old later told me that he nicknamed it “Treadmill Hill” because he felt like no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t getting anywhere.
Trophy time
After conquering that last hill, the finish line finally came into view. My two boys were there waiting and I got a kick of adrenaline. I wound up crossing the finish line in 32:47. That’s my slowest 5k time thus far, but the conditions were also the hardest, so I’m fine with it.
And my kids? They not only beat me, but they both also won trophies! Our twelve year old took 2nd place for his age group, and our eight year old took 3rd for his age group.
As I crossed the finish line, my eight year old looked up with a gleam in his eye and said “Dad, do you think they’d let me run it again?” Hah. Maybe next year.
While he didn’t get to tackle the course a second time, he jumped at the chance to do the mile-long Fun Run. And guess what? He covered that mile in 8:30 despite having just run his first 5k. Not bad for an eight year old, huh?
As for our five year old, he ran some, walked some, and got a piggyback for awhile. At the end, however, he crested the Treadmill Hill on foot and sprinted to the end of his first 5k. He also did the Fun Run and made it through the whole way.
One last thing… This marks my 3rd consecutive month having run a 5k since I started running. My twelve year old and I have an unofficial goal of running at least one 5k per month for 12 months in a row.
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That’s awesome! I can’t believe your 5 year old is run/walk/piggybacking 5K’s already. Maybe I need to raise my expectations a bit