My Son’s First 5k! (Part 1)

First off, I have to apologize for being so absent this last week.

I try to post every 2-3 days, but unfortunately, we had a sudden death in the family this week. 🙁  My dear Uncle Marty passed away, and it was a sad weekend in our family.  However, the funeral service was a wonderful tribute to him, and it was nice to spend time with my dad’s side of the family.  We enjoyed reminiscing about Uncle Marty and the many good times we’d all had with him.

With the funeral over and my houseguest from last week gone, things are getting back to normal, finally. So, now it’s time for me to tell you about my son’s first 5k!  It’s quite a story, so I think I will do it in two parts, because this proud mama is about to go on and on (and on!). 😉

Uncle Marty’s funeral was Saturday night, and we gathered at my cousin’s house afterwards.  We didn’t get back home until around 9:30pm.  (That’s awfully late for the night before a race for two kids, but it couldn’t be helped.)  I tucked both boys in and then went downstairs to make sure I knew where and when I needed to be in the morning for DS#1’s first 5k.  He was really excited and I knew it would be tough to get him to sleep!

It was when I was reading the info about the race that I came to two very startling realizations.   I looked everywhere for information about “awards” or “medals,” but found nothing. That’s when I realized that the race was not actually timed. 🙁  Basically, it was just a “fun race.”  I suppose those can be enjoyable, but considering I had been touting this for a month as a “real race,” I didn’t have a good feeling about telling my son this news.  As I read that, I suddenly realized I saw nothing in the race info about t-shirts.  I downloaded the registration form I’d been sent and sure enough–I had totally overlooked the fact that there was no t-shirt for this race!  DS#1 and I had specifcally talked about the t-shirt on Thursday, and he had been so excited to get a race t-shirt of his own.

I went upstairs and, as I suspected, he was still up, so I sat on his bed and told him the news.  I asked him if he still wanted to do it, even though he wouldn’t be timed and there was no t-shirt.  The timing was less critical to him, but as much as he tried, he couldn’t hide his disappointment about not getting a shirt. 🙁  My heart just broke for him.  When I asked him if he still wanted to do the race, he hesitated for a moment, but then, because he’s a good kid, he said he would do it.

Of course, being his mom, I couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing him, and I asked if he wanted to wait and do a different race the following Sunday. He looked kind of down and quietly said, “Well, I really wanted to race tomorrow. But whatever you want to do is fine.”

Oh geez.  By this time I was feeling like the worst mom ever :-P, and I determined I would do my best to find him a real race.  I ran back downstairs and spent the next 20 minutes looking for a race that would be held the very next morning.  I found two and talked them over with my husband.  One was farther away (although honestly, both were pretty far!), but the other one didn’t seem to have an age group for kids as young as my son (he is 10, and they seemed to start registration at age 12).  We agreed that DS#1 could probably pass for a small 12-year-old, so I went back upstairs to present the option to him.  (Mind you, it was nearly 10:30 by this time!)  Of course he was still awake. 😉  I told him I had found a race in the morning that was about 60 miles from our house, and although it was definitely timed, we weren’t guaranteed shirts because we’d missed the registration deadline. I asked him if he still wanted to do it despite that, and he said yes.

I told him his dad and I would make it work, and then I mentioned that he might have to lie about his age a little.  He looked at me in shock and said, “But, Mom! That’s not right! I think it’s illegal!” 😛 I tell you what, nothing like a 10-year-old to bring you down a peg or two. 😉  I told him we’d ask when we got there, but if he really wanted to race, we MIGHT have to tell a little while lie.  He answered, “Well I sure hope we don’t have to.”

I spent the whole night tossing and turning and worrying about this race.  I know that kids need to experience disappointment at times in their lives, but DS#1 has gotten way too much of that with his hockey situation earlier this year, and he’s worked SO hard for this race, I really wanted to make it a good experience for him.  I got the whole family up at 6am and out the door by 7am to head up to Milford. It was a long drive, made longer by the fact that I forced my husband to drive, despite the fact that he works nights and had stayed up till 2am that morning because he had to work Sunday night.  And let me tell you, he is absolutely NOT a morning person.  😛

When we arrived, I practically jumped out of the car and ran over to the registration desk.  The first words out of my mouth were, “Do you have any t-shirts left?”  “Not many,” was the answer and my heart sunk. “Any adult smalls?” (Yes, he fits in an adult small–see why we were convinced he could pass for 12? 😉 ) The woman frowned. “No.  But we have adult medium…?” she offered hopefully. “I’ll take it!” I answered gleefully.  “I’ll take two if you’ve got them!”

So, problem #1 solved.  Onto problem #2.

“So…” I began nonchalantly.  “Is there an age limit on the 5k?  I mean, as long as I pay the full registration fee, can a kid run?”

“Umm, I don’t think there’s a limit…” she answered. “What age?”

“Six,” I answered, thinking I could pretend that DS#2 was going to run, and if they said there was an age limit, I could pass off my white lie about DS#1.  “My littlest one was thinking he might do the 5k. He might do the fun run, though,” I added to hedge my bets (because in reality, there is no way DS#2 could run 3.1 miles!!).

The woman looked at her co-volunteer and shrugged. “Any age is good as long as they pay the fee, right?” The co-volunteer answered, “Sure!”

“And so my 10-year-old is good, too, right?” I asked as though it were already a given.  😉 One of them waved her hand and said, “Oh yeah, sure,” so I grabbed 3 registration forms and an extra t-shirt for DS#2 and headed back to my car.

As I walked up to the car with the blue shirts, DS#1 saw me and a huge grin appeared on his face. “They had shirts? For all of us?”

When I answered yes, he practically jumped out of the car to grab his.  He was so excited to get a real race t-shirt! 😀  I answered his next question before he could even ask it: “Yes, it’s okay for ten-year-olds to run the race.”  I could see this was a huge relief to him.  I love that he is honest to a fault, even if his mother doesn’t always follow the same practice. 😉

We all put our shirts on immediately.  They actually were really nice shirts…thick cotton, and a nice blue color.  (The fact that I’m not a big fan of “tech shirts” probably just shows that I’m not a “real” runner, lol!)  We were able to get a picture of all of us in our shirts before the race began.

Is it me or is that an awesome blue??  😀

I’m going to end the post here, because there is so much more, it really needs another full post.  Stay tuned later this week (tomorrow if things go well!), when I tell you about all the entrants from my family who participated in the GFLCF Run for a Cure! 🙂

Thanks so much for reading (and for being patient)!