Strawberry Run Race Report 2016

Another run is in the books for my son JJ, and this is a pretty big one, because it marks the first time he has run a race longer than a 5K.  I convinced him to sign up for this race about three months ago, right after Jamie finished the Leap Year Four Miler. JJ is very competitive, especially when it comes to his brother, and when Jamie had such a good race that day, JJ immediately started talking about when he was going to do his next race. I challenged him to take the leap from 5K to 8K, which I told him was “around 4 1/2 miles.”  Give or take half a mile, right? 😉 At any rate, he was a little unsure, but I pretty much badgered him into it. :p

However, we signed up for that race before we knew we were going to put him in spring baseball. Our plan for him was to play spring hockey, but no other sports at the same time. But when they put together a fourth grade baseball team at his school, he really wanted to play ball with his friends, and I couldn’t say no.  Thus, he had a very active spring, which made it hard for him to find time to train for the race. We actually considered skipping it in early May, but we both agreed later that it was good for him to have a new goal, and that he could just go out and run his best, and not care about any type of time goal. He’s an active enough kid normally that I felt pretty confident that he could run/walk 8 kilometers without too much trouble. 

But then again, that was before we knew what conditions we were going to face on race day.

As we got closer to Friday, and I saw what the forecast was for a 7 PM race start, I was feeling really bad for both of my kids. Poor Jamie had run in those horrible conditions on the hottest day of the year the previous Saturday, and now JJ was going to be running in even worse conditions because of the timing of his race. But then I realized that the person that I should really feel bad for is me, because I had to run them both! :p

We arrived at the race with plenty of time to park and go pick up our packets, which was about a four-block walk from the high school parking lot. The race was in Belleville, a suburb west of Detroit, which is on its own man-made lake.

We picked up the packets, and then walked back to our car to drop off our shirts and the other things in the goody bag. We stayed in the car for a little while to cool off, then we did some stretches, applied plenty of sunscreen, and then headed back to the starting line. Unfortunately, it was a lot of walking pre-race, but at least we had plenty of time, and we were able to keep cool for a little while in the car. 

Back at the starting line area, we filed to the spot where everyone was waiting, and we laughed when we saw that they were bringing out huge boxes of strawberry Pop-Tarts.  I’m sure most people would say that isn’t very good post race food, but I personally love strawberry Pop-Tarts, so I thought that was a great idea.  😉 Besides, they serve pizza after some runs, and I think that’s just gross!

We sat down on the ground in the shade with all the other runners as we waited for the race to begin. 

And then, with about six or seven minutes to go, I suddenly had a horrible realization: I had forgotten our sweat rag in the car. 

Now, I know that sweat rags are not a “true” race necessity.  For instance, Jamie is my kid who never, ever uses a sweat rag. He is just fine with sweat dripping off him through an entire 6-mile race. I, on the other hand, cannot stand it, and the thought of running 5 miles in that heat without a sweat rag was really upsetting me. I also know that JJ is like me in that he really likes having a sweat rag. 

At that point, I was faced with a dilemma: either we’d have no sweat rag for five hot, humid miles, or I was going to have to run four blocks back to the car to get it, which meant not only running really, really fast, but leaving JJ by himself for that time. I was more worried about leaving JJ, but I knew that it would be a miserable 5 miles without our sweat rag, so I came up with an idea: I walked him over to the Pop-Tart area, where all the race organizers were, told him to hang with them for a little while as they put the Pop-Tarts out, and I would be right back. JJ was completely unconcerned about being left alone…he was just worried I wouldn’t make it back in time for the race start! I promised him it would all be fine, and then I set out to run my fastest run in quite a while! Nothing will motivate you to run faster than the specter of bad parenting. :/  I honestly can’t remember the last time I ran that hard; it was probably the last time I did intervals!

I got to the car, grabbed that rag, and then hightailed it back just as fast.  As I ran, I could hear the announcer, although I couldn’t quite make out what was said. Still, I figured it wouldn’t be terrible if we weren’t there when the race started, because we would be in the back of the pack, anyway, and it takes time to get across the finish line when you’re in the back. 

I ran even harder as I saw my Garmin get closer to 7 o’clock,and then, as I was almost to the start/finish area, I saw JJ. The moment he caught sight of me, he immediately start running toward me. For a split second, I was worried that he’d gotten scared in the few minutes he’d been by himself, but then I quickly realized, as he pulled the hydration belt off his waist, that he was just panicked that we had missed the start of the race!  He hurried up to me, handing me the belt, shouting, “The race started, Mom! We have to go NOW!”  At that point, after almost 7 minutes of hard running, I had to take a break, so I slowed to a walk and gasped out, “It’s okay, JJ, it starts when we start!”  He wasn’t in agreement, and just kept urging me to hurry up!

I strapped the belt on me and then started running again (not nearly as hard) until we got to the true starting line, when we had to weave in and out of the people lining up for the 5k.  We just kept running through them, eventually making it across the starting mat and onto the true race course.  I realized about 100 yards into the run that I needed to start my Garmin, and I did, but I knew I would be “short” the entire race.

JJ was pretty fired up, despite the hot, humid conditions (84 degrees at race start, according to the nearest weather station), and he started out too fast, as he usually does.  I told him we needed to slow down (since I’d just done a full-on 7-minute interval in that heat!), but he was pretty determined to start passing people.  😮  After we got to the Denton Street Bridge (which traverses Belleville Lake), he was feeling it, though; he suddenly said, “Mom, can you slow down?” To which I unashamedly replied, “Oh, hell yes!!”  :p

We continued on, and JJ was doing surprisingly well. As for me, I was having a hard time keeping up with him, and I had to make him slow down a couple of times, which he wasn’t too happy about.  As we had done during most of our training runs, we walked every half a mile, when he took water from my hydration belt, and gratefully wiped himself off with the sweat rag. (I knew he would need it!)

Before long, we turned off the main road into a neighborhood, one with gravel roads. :/  The footing was tougher, but we trudged through, and JJ really surprised me with his attitude.  He was smiling through those first few miles, and even agreed to a mid-run selfie.

At one point, during a walk break, he indicated that he was ready to start up again, and I swear we had just started walking!  When I told him I wasn’t ready yet, he cheerfully replied, “Come on, Mom.  The sooner we start running again, the sooner we finish!”  My annoyingly chipper outlook on life has come back to bite me in the ass in the form of my offspring. 😉

Things changed, though, when we got out of the neighborhood and back on the main road.  At that point, we were heading directly into the sun, with no shade to block it, and running in that heat with the sun beating down on us was just hard. I could tell that JJ was finally starting to feel it right about the time we hit the halfway point.  He still insisted on making our walk breaks short, though.  During a particularly hot stretch, when I was really struggling with getting going again, I reminded him that it was a hot day and we didn’t have to finish first; we just had to finish.  It was at that point that he admitted to me that he really wanted to be in the top 3 so he could be “on the leaderboard,” as he called it.  I’m sure the fact that his brother won his age group the previous weekend had something to do with that!

Eventually, we found ourselves in a cemetery, where we finally had some shade.

Even so, JJ was really starting to falter.  He asked for an unscheduled walk break, and also asked for a second energy gel, even though the first one he’d had around mile .5 didn’t sit all that well in his stomach. We walked, drank some water, and I even stopped to take a rock out of my shoe.  He started running again and seemed to have gained a little energy from the break.

As we entered the cemetery proper, we passed by some volunteers, and I believe one was a medical responder.  They were blaring upbeat music from their truck, and JJ commented that he thought it was very disrespectful that they were playing that music in a cemetery.  My love of cemeteries is well-documented on my blog (my first 10k was in a cemetery), and I told him that I didn’t think it was disrespectful at all.  I said I thought the people buried here were probably happy to have so many visitors.  At that point, we were running directly through the cemetery, past dozens of stones.

I then told him that I also think that when you visit a cemetery and say the names on the tombstones aloud, it makes the deceased people happy to be remembered and spoken of, instead of forgotten. JJ immediately looked to his left and started reading names off as we ran. 🙂 It was one of my favorite moments of the race.

From that point on, I could tell JJ was really getting tired, but I pointed out to him that we were more than half way! We took another unscheduled walk break at 2.75, and then we enjoyed the water station right at mile 3.  We started up again, and he found the energy to smile for another picture.

He was so tired, but I was so proud of him!  From that point, he was averaging right around a 13-mile mile, including the 1/2 mile walk breaks.  He seemed to really struggle right around mile 4, and that’s when he started asking me how much farther.  I finally had to admit to him that the race was actually 5 miles, and that we still had about a mile to go.  He. Was. Not. Happy. 😮 He wanted to walk again within a quarter mile of the last break, but I convinced him to go the full half-mile, at which point we’d be near the bridge again. He grumbled a little, but he did it.

After a longer walk break and some more water, we started up again, and at that point, we were on the bridge.

We could hear the noise from the finish line.  He kept his pace pretty even right up until the last 100 yards, when he put forth all the effort he had.

And finally, we were finished!  He got his medal and immediately began looking for a spot to sit.

But then he remembered that there were snacks, lol!  We headed straight for the Pop-Tart table.

Look at all those strawberry Pop-Tarts, lined up in rows.  What a beautiful sight! 😉  There were also Panera chocolate chip cookies, and he grabbed one of each.  I just grabbed a Pop-Tart.  When he first sat down, he wasn’t too happy to have his picture taken.

But after some water, a Pop-Tart, and half a cookie, he felt better:

We rested a while and talked about the race, and he made sure to tell me several times that it wasn’t very nice of me to lie about the distance. 😮  But he was so proud of himself for running 5 whole miles!  Eventually, we thought to look up his finish time, though we were fairly certain he hadn’t finished in the top 3 because his finish time was around a 12:45.  But to our shock…

He managed to take third place!  He was so happy to have made the “leaderboard” after all his hard work. He even got a mug!

Don’t be too impressed–it’s plastic. 😉  But still, he was super-thrilled, and he filled it with lemonade and drank from it as soon as he got home. 😀

In addition to the Pop-Tart and cookie, I also took him out for treat I had originally promised him as a reward for running an 8K: a Dairy Queen treat of his choice.  He chose the new “Royal Blizzard,” but we were so tired by that time, and in a hurry to get home, I forgot to take a picture.

I did make sure to get a “post-race” medal picture the next day, which JJ actually suggested as we walked back to the car Friday night, probably because I’d just done it with his brother 6 days earlier.  Jamie has had his “June race picture” taken 4 years in a row, and JJ obviously didn’t want to be left out.  I told him I’d do his picture just like his brother’s, and JJ actually surprised me by saying, “So I guess this will be the race we do together every year, right?”  I was shocked that he was even thinking about doing the race again after the horrible experience we’d just had, and I said as much.  He just smiled and said, “I’ll do it again if you will!”

And of course I replied, “You betcha, kiddo!” 🙂

Thanks for reading!

PS:  Here’s a post-race picture outtake, because it’s so cute and such a perfect reflection of JJ’s character. 🙂