Kid's First Race

On Wednesday afternoon I discovered that my normal Thanksgiving Day run had been moved to the preceding Sunday. Not wanting to give up my tradition of running a race on thanksgiving day, I did some research and found out that there was a cross country race in Marin, not far from our house, that featured a kid's mile race and a 2.8 course for adults.

I thought the kids would bristle but on the contrary; they were pretty stoked. Not sure whether they could run a full mile I took The Boy to the track to see if he could simply finish the distance without stopping, and he surprised me by running an 8:35 mile. Not bad at all. The Little Girl didn't accompany us but made it clear that if her brother could do it, so could she.

So, we woke up bright and early and registered them for their first race. Since someone had to watch them after their race, we decided The Wife could run the adult rae. I am pretty fried anyway from all this marathon training.

Not sure of the final tally for the kid's race, but it well exceeded one hundred. The race goes off and they disappear for a little while and when they come out of the woods, I note the boy is in eight place and cruising. I have to confess, I was very excited, more so than I've been for any baseball game. He went up a hill and disappeared again and when he came back into view he had given up a few spots but was still in 11th place. I ran with him and he cruised in much faster than I expected. I hit my watch and -- 8:12! That's a pretty good time for an adult, let alone a kid who's never really run before. Less than two minutes later his sister came cruising in at time of 10:15. That too is a great time (note it was a fairly hill course) and we soon discovered that the girl won her age group.

The one photo is of her receiving her medal. It could have the podium at Beijing I was so proud (as was she) when they called her name. The Boy was bummed that he missed the podium by one spot, but he was hapy for his sister, which was very cool.

I think they might have found their sport.

Alas, no podium or medals for The Wife, who is still complaining about the hills on the adult course, but a nice effort all the same.

All in all, a perfect kick off to a perfect day.