Paczki Run Race Report

Before we get to the race report, I have to start with an announcement.  Like last year, I have come to a point where keeping one of my kids’ names a mystery is pretty much a futile effort.  Now that both my boys are “real” runners, entering actual races, their names are out there for the public to find, and pretty easily I might add, since they’re among the youngest runners and therefore in a very small age group.  My youngest son crossed that threshold on Saturday with his first official 5k, so I’ve decided it’s time to let his secret out, too.  So, without further ado, let me introduce you to…

(FYI:  Daniel, the name he chose for me to use for him on my blog up to this point, is actually his middle name. 😉 )

Okay, now that you’ve met him, let’s talk about him! 🙂 JJ actually had a pretty good February. He turned eight earlier in the month, and then last Sunday, he got his first goal of the season, which also happens to be his first goal as a full-ice hockey player.  That picture above is him holding the game puck, which we filled out with all the pertinent details of the goal.   It was a pretty big deal for him, and for us, too. He actually did score a goal in our very first scrimmage game of the season, but the referee waved it off. We thought for sure he get another one soon, but he had quite a dry spell, and so we were really excited when he got his goal last Sunday.

During the week leading up to his race, he had one more training run to get in.  I’ll admit I haven’t been very hard on him in regards to his training for this 5K. Our treadmill is in the barn, of course, and so all his training runs have been in this cold frigid weather. It’s hard for me to justify sending him out to the barn to run when it’s 6°.  🙁  He would do it, but I won’t lie… he complained a lot. In that respect, he’s not like his brother, who does his training runs without question,  usually without being asked. Even as a baby, JJ has always been my whiner. 😉 When he gets out to the barn, he’s not very enthusiastic about running fast. He averages about a 17- to a 20-minute mile, lol!  But he’s running, so I don’t complain.

For this 5K, JJ actually had a friend that would be running with him. One of the moms on Jamie’s team has a son that’s JJ’s age, who also plays hockey, and he and JJ are quite good buddies. When I told her that JJ was signing up for the Paczki Run, she signed up her little boy, G, as well. JJ was excited to run with a friend, and I was glad he had some extra incentive to run.

On Wednesday, I asked JJ if he would do one more training run before his 5K. I casually mentioned that his friend G was running 2 1/2 miles that day, on the indoor track at the Y. I mentioned to Jamie separately that G runs a sub 10-minute mile. Turns JJ heard me, and it affected him.  He asked me where G runs.  I told him on an indoor track. He answered, “So he doesn’t run outside at all?” I told him no.

All of a sudden, JJ was getting dressed in his warmest clothes and telling me, “I want to run outside. Right now.” Considering it was almost dark AND about 13°, I said no! But he was insistent, and I didn’t want to dampen the enthusiasm (my baby boy is nothing if not competitive 😉 ), so we bundled up, and ran for a whole mile outside.

It was cold, and if you’re wondering, he is wearing Jamie’s Under Armour facemask to help him stay warm.  He ran the mile in a little over 13 minutes, which was a great time for him, especially in the cold!

He had promised to run two full miles that day (couldn’t get him to commit to 2 1/2 like G), but once he got in the barn, he ran another half mile on the treadmill and stopped.  “I’m done,” he told me.

“Um, no. You told me you were going to run two miles, so you need to run two miles.”

And then, the whining began again…sigh.  I love him, but he is the king of melodrama. 😛 He did eventually run the last half-mile, and then even another 1/8 of a mile after that, so clearly he had it in him, he was just being lazy. 😉  Still, that was his farthest total run ever, so I was quite proud of him.

I picked up the race packets on Thursday night, and was in for quite a surprise: JJ was runner number one!

That was actually HIS bib number, not number they give all the kids running. His friend G also had a low bid number. When I asked the lady how they ended up with those numbers, she said that they give the lowest numbers to the youngest kids, and clearly JJ and G were the youngest runners! JJ was crazy excited about being runner number one. 😉  G was technically younger by eight days, but I think they went in alphabetical order after they did it by birth year.

Saturday morning, I ran 10 miles before we left, since I had 13 on my marathon training schedule.  JJ was up by 7am and ready to go.  Friday night, my husband had gone to Walmart for some oil change supplies and he surprised JJ by buying him an Under Armour top and bottoms—you’d think that we’d bought him a new toy, he was so excited!  He dressed while I showered and then he stood around with his hat and coat on, waiting for me to be done getting ready, ha ha.

For those that don’t know, Paczki Day is a Polish tradition on what most people call Fat Tuesday. Paczki (pronounced “ponch-key” from what I’ve been told; the singular is paczek, though you rarely hear non-Poles use it) are basically big fat jelly donuts that are made with all the lard, sugar, and oil that were traditionally given up for Lent by the good Polish Catholics. Or at least, that’s how it was explained to me!  They’re like a jelly donut, only better.  For those who know how much I love donuts, it should not come as a surprise that I absolutely adore paczki.  🙂

Hamtramck (ham-tram-ick) is a city in the middle of city of Detroit that was settled by mostly Polish immigrants back in the 1800s.  It is well-known in metro-Detroit for this heritage, and although the genetic make-up of the city has changed since then, there are still a lot of Polish people and Polish stores/restaurants in the area.   When we talk about Paczki Day around here, the big celebration is always in Hamtramck, and it’s well-known that all the best paczki can be found there.

So, back to the race: we met up with my friend Ann (G’s mom), and a few of her friends at a gas station, and she was kind enough to drive us all up to Hamtramck.  Ann is Polish, which is one reason why she wanted to sign up for the run.  She actually did Polish dance from the time she was a little girl until she graduated high school, and she’d been to Hamtramck many times when she was younger.   When we arrived, we stood near the start/finish line on Joseph Campau Street, in the heart of downtown Hamtramck.

It’s funny to say “downtown Hamtramck,” because the city is really, really small.  Their slogan is “The world in two square miles.”

It was about 26 degrees at race start—balmy compared to other days this winter. 😉 As we waited, we enjoyed polka music on the loudspeaker, ha ha!  JJ and I got a pre-race photo.

I will forever laugh about that photo-bomber in the background.  I have no idea who he is. 😉

They tried to play the Polish national anthem, but the recording wouldn’t start. (Ann was able to sing most of it for those around her. 🙂 ) There was some confusion at the beginning about the time to start versus the time the clocks were actually ready, ha ha, but eventually we got going. I took this picture of JJ and G as they started out just past the starting line.

JJ is on the left. Aren’t they adorable? 🙂

JJ and G enjoyed running together, and I was glad that he was there to keep JJ motivated.  Between the ice and the people  and the cars that were parked on the road that shouldn’t have been, we kept it pretty slow, but it was a good pace for two 8-year-olds.  Since we were running slow enough, I was able to take this picture of the Polish café as we ran by.

A little while after I took that picture, JJ suddenly got a stitch in his side. He didn’t want to stop, but he had to because his side hurt, so I walked with him. It was challenging to try to maneuver the ice and the cars and the people, and not be in everybody’s way, but we did the best we could. The roads weren’t pretty, though.  This is a shot of a good one, believe it or not!

JJ wanted to start up again right away, because he wanted to catch up with G, but he wasn’t ready yet, so I made him walk some more.

We started running again, and walked a little bit a few times, but he kept up a good pace. I was amazed at how many people noticed that he was runner number one and commented on it.

“Hey, look! It’s runner number one! Go get ’em, kiddo!”

He got a lot of encouragement from those people, and every time someone said something to him, he ran just a little bit faster. 🙂

At one point when he was walking, he asked me if he could hear some music. Normally I wouldn’t play music without headphones, but I figured it was a casual race, and he was eight years old, and nobody would care. I asked him what song he wanted, and he told me he wanted to hear the happy song. For those who don’t know, that is Pharrell’s song from the Despicable Me movie.  I played it for him on my phone low, and held it close to him so that he could hear it, and he really enjoyed it. A few people who ran by or that we passed chuckled about it and commented on what a great song it was.

I played him a couple more songs, and then, to our surprise, at about mile two, we ended up running into Ann and G and again. He was so excited to be running with his friend again! At that point, G wasn’t going to stop, and JJ didn’t want to lose him again, so he kept up the rest of the way.  There were a lot of comments from the runners about our two adorable little kids, and they got lots of encouragement.

As we ran down Poland Street towards Joseph Campau, Ann and I told the kids that when they rounded the corner, they would see the finish line. Much to our surprise, when they did round the corner, they took off…and I mean took off!!  Ann and I kind of looked at each other in shock and then sprinted after them, calling out, “Wait a minute, guys, it’s not that close!” It was pretty funny.

JJ couldn’t hold the sprint quite as well as G, so I was able to catch up to him, but Ann sure had a hard time catching up to her son. She’s a four-time marathon runner, so she did catch up, and I think he actually did get a little tired toward the end. 😉

JJ and I were only about 20 seconds behind them, and he really worked it toward the end.

That was a picture taken by the official photographer, and unfortunately was the only one I could find of him in all the pictures they took. I’m glad I have one of him finishing though. He came in at just under 39 minutes, 38:56. I was so proud of him! When he was done, I took him off to the side to let him rest, because I figured he’d be exhausted. He stood there for about 30 seconds catching his breath, then he looked up at me and said, “Okay, I’m ready for my paczki now.” Ha ha, clearly doughnuts outweigh exhaustion.

We went to the area where they were giving them out, and he took a raspberry one. (For the record, I took a lemon one.) I could barely get him back to the sidelines before he was digging into it.

I made him stop eating it long enough to get a smile.

Is that not just the greatest picture?  Okay, okay, I may be a bit biased. 😉

When I asked him if he would pose for a picture with me, he couldn’t be bothered to stop eating the paczki (technically, paczek) a second time.

A few minutes later, G and his mom came up with their paczki. When I asked G what kind he got, he told me it was chocolate. You should’ve seen the look on JJ’s face!

“There were chocolate ones?”

If you didn’t know that was my kid, now you definitely do. 😉 He was a good sport about not getting a chocolate one, but after we dropped everybody off at the gas station and headed home, all I heard from the backseat was how next year we need to make sure to ASK if they have chocolate ones before we just take whatever is out.  😀

Later that day, my husband took JJ to his hockey game, while Jamie and I went to a church function. I love that my boys will go out for a race in the morning and then play hockey in the afternoon!

JJ told me he had so much fun at the race and was really glad he did it. I was really glad that he had such a good experience. After all the cold training runs, I was worried that he wouldn’t want to do another race!

Later on that night, after the kids were in bed and my husband and I finally had a moment to talk to each other, I was telling him about the race, and I mentioned the chocolate paczki. My husband started laughing.

“Oh,” he said, “don’t worry. I heard all about the chocolate paczki and how he didn’t get one but he’s going to make sure to ask for one next year!”

So, I guess it’s official…we’re doing the Paczki Run next year! 😉

Thanks for reading!  And by the way–happy Paczki Day! 😀