Letting Go

Last Saturday, JJ had a game at 8 AM, so my husband and I were up and out the door with him by 6:45. I’ve certainly had my share of early-morning Saturdays, but it didn’t feel right to be up that early on a weekend and not be running. :p Honestly, if it had just been me running, I would’ve gotten up super early and got it done before we left, but since I was running with Jamie, that wasn’t an option.

Unfortunately, that meant we had to attend the game, and then I had to get home and get Jamie out the door, which is sometimes a challenge, especially in the morning. (He is a teenager, after all.) When I got home around 10 AM, I asked him if he wanted to go somewhere to run, or if he wanted to just run down our road. He always likes to go places, so he asked if we could go run the Metropark connector trail up in flat rock. I do like the Flat Rock trail, just because it’s pretty and also not very congested.

By the time we got up there, it was about 10:30, and the sun was high enough that it was rather warm. It was also surprisingly windy. We set out on the trail, with me looking forward to a nice, relaxing easy run.

Jamie, on the other hand, seemed to have other plans. He started out really fast. I thought we’d be doing somewhere around an 11:10 or 11:20, but I looked at my watch, and we were in the mid-9s to start! I asked him what his watch was showing, and he said his was showing more of a 10:20. Possibly because the trees and leaves overhead were affecting the satellites for his watch more so than mine?

At any rate, I asked him if we could slow down a bit, and we ended up with a 10:08 according to my watch (10:17 for his). As soon as the mile beeped, he stopped for a walk, for which I was grateful. I know I just ran a full 13.1 miles at a 9:50 pace last weekend, but Saturday, even just 1 mile at that pace was hard!

He walked for a little less than 1/10 of a mile, taking the water that I gave him ( since I was the one with the hydration belt), then we started up again. At that point, we were heading into the woodsy part of the trail, which was really pretty.  When we started up again, he was still booking pretty fast, and I was still struggling to keep up. I didn’t say anything, though, because he was really working hard, and I didn’t want to discourage him or hold him back.

I assumed we would walk at 2 miles, but noooo…he kept going. :/ I couldn’t handle it anymore, and I gasped out, “When are we stopping again?” He very calmly told me at 2.25, to which I replied, “Thank God!” 😉

We walked at that point and he took some more water, but he started up again fairly quickly. We only had another half a mile to go before we would turn around, since we were running 5.5 miles, so I knew we weren’t going to stop again until after the turnaround. I figured we might stop again at 3 miles, but once again, he just blew on past it. Then we passed 3.25 without stopping. As my watch got close to ticking off the 3.5 mile mark, I once again asked him when we were going to stop. He was intently looking at his watch at that moment, and he ticked off the hundredths of a mile until we hit 3.5 and walked again.

By this time, my right hamstring was beginning to hurt, and I was having a really hard time trying to catch my breath. I knew that I was done trying to keep up with him. As we walked through the wooded section again, I said, “OK, Jamie, I’m about done. You have three choices:

1. Continue on without me and carry a water bottle with you.
2. Continue on without water.
3. Dial it back some to stay with me and the water.”

To my surprise, he immediately answered, “I’ll just run without water.” Dude, no love lost for Mom. :p. I say that, but the truth is, I wouldn’t have wanted to hold him back, and I was glad he had enough confidence to be willing to strike out on his own.

That’s Jamie, heading away from me at the 3-mile mark. It was actually rather bittersweet to watch him go. I have often told him in the last three years that one day he was going to leave me behind, and while I always secretly thought that it would be a long ways in the future, it turns out that last Saturday was that day. *sniff*

I was surprised he didn’t take a water bottle, though, because I know he likes his water. I started up again not long after he did, and I could see him in the distance for the majority of the way back, unless there was a curve. At one point, with probably about a mile to go, I saw him walk, and I felt bad because I knew he didn’t have any water. I pushed myself to try to catch up to give him some water, but despite my best efforts, he started up again before I got there. (At which point, I cursed him a little bit for making me go through that effort for nothing. :p)

I watched him turn the corner through the park, but then I lost sight of him until I got almost to the end, where I saw him actually walking back toward me. When I stopped at the 5.5 mile mark, he was entering the code for my car to reach in and get some water. I handed him one of the bottles on my belt and asked him how he was doing. He looked surprisingly good, and the first thing out of his mouth was “10:19!” with a huge grin! I was shocked, and I was so proud of him. Considering his best run prior to that was a 4.5-miler in the 10:50 range, that was incredible!

As soon as he took a drink of water, he went and sat on a bench, and then I went to the grass and flopped down on my back because I was so exhausted. He asked me what my time was (because of course he is a competitive little snot), and I admitted that I had come in at about 10:29. He told me that I did a good job, but he looked a little smug about it. And then he was quiet for a minute as he looked at me, lying flat on my back in the grass near the river.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?” I gasped, still trying to catch my breath.

“You know you’re probably laying in goose poop, right?”

Son of a…!!!

After I used my sweat rag to clean myself up, I got a picture of my very proud son.

I even got a picture of our watches side by side for the comparison.

He was so proud of himself. Like he always does after a really good run, he spent the next few minutes giving me a stride-by-stride account of his run, especially the last two miles without me. He joked that he’d actually run past my car to another car that looked just like mine, and he spent almost a minute trying to get into it before he realized it was the wrong one. 😉

Later, to celebrate his awesome run, we stopped at the Dairy Queen there in Flat Rock.

Pic

I let him rest for the remainder of the day, and then on Sunday, he had a football game. To continue his great weekend, he ended up with a fumble recovery!

They ended up scoring a touchdown on that play, so it was a great day for him. 🙂

Every day I’m amazed at how much Jamie is growing up. He’s getting so mature, and he’s becoming such a truly good young man. Next weekend is our Scrumpy 10k, and I can only hope that I’m able to keep up with him. But even if I don’t, I’m finally starting to realize that he will probably do just fine without me. 🙂

An update on my “experiment” will come with the next post. Meanwhile, thanks for reading (and for letting me gush about my son)!