Awesome Run

I ran a mile last night.  Actually, I didn’t run the whole mile…I walked several times.  My pace was pretty unimpressive—13:32.  For only a mile!  But it was still a truly awesome run.  Why?

Because, for the first time, I ran with my 6-year-old son. 🙂

He’s been bugging me to run with him for a while now, and with his older brother off having fun at camp, I decided to indulge him.  I told him in the morning we’d run that night if he felt up to it.  He had a very busy day yesterday (he participated in the annual Mud Day event in our area), and I didn’t expect him to have the same enthusiasm for it in the evening, but to my surprise, he was ready to go when we got home—more ready than me, even!  He waited outside for probably 10 minutes while I slowly changed out of my work clothes and mustered up the enthusiasm for an evening run.

Thankfully, it wasn’t as hot as it has been, so we had that on our side.  Before we started, I told him he had to keep pace with me, and not run as fast as he could right out of the shoot (that boy personifies enthusiasm in everything he does!).  I told him that he was allowed to slow down to a walk whenever he wanted to, and I even brought along a bottle of water for him, so he could have a drink whenever he needed it.  (Okay, it was for me, too, ha ha!)

After all this instruction, he was practically quivering in anticipation, so I started the Garmin and off we went.  He had a hard time not going at break-neck speed, but he stayed with me and ran probably close to 2/10ths of a mile before he had his first walk break.  He was very proud of himself, because the last time I let him “run as far as he wanted,” he’d only gone to his friends’ house about 1/10^th a mile down the road.  “Look, Mom!” he said while he was running past their house.  “I already beat my record!”  😉

He ran steady, taking a break every about every 2/10ths or quarter of a mile—not bad for a six year old.  We turned around a little past a half mile.  Each time he had a walk break, he would take a drink of water (always making sure I got some, too—awwww), and then, he’d set another goal for himself.  “This time, I’m going to run to the white house before I stop.”  “Now I’m going to run to the black mailbox.”

As we got closer to home, I offered him a challenge on our last walk break.  I told him that we’d start at our neighbor’s driveway (about 1/10^th a mile from our house), and I’d let him run as fast as he could, and I would, too, and we’d see who won.  Silly me, I thought I’d have to hold back to keep pace with him.  Ha!  I don’t know where he gets his energy, but even after all the running up to that point, he tore off like a bat out of hell! I had to really work to stay even a step behind him—and the little bugger actually did beat me home!

I was really bummed that I wasn’t going to be able to get a picture of us running, since we were the only ones home at that point of the evening, but lo and behold, our neighbor came home just as we got back and was more than happy to snap a few photos.

I could tell he thought it was great fun to run with Mom.  He was so happy and so proud of himself—but not nearly as proud as I was of him!

When we were done, he was already asking me if we could do it again the next night, ha ha!  I told him mommy has to give herself a day off between runs, because she’s old. 😉

Here are our splits—all 1.13 miles of them! 😉

Here’s our timing.  You can definitely see our walk breaks, and couple points where he stopped outright, but you can also see how fast he went there at the end!

I’m quite proud of my little six-year-old runner, and more importantly, we had a great time—truly, it was the most enjoyable run I’ve done to date. (And not just because I barely exerted myself. 😉 )  I really look forward to doing this with him on a regular basis, and, if I’m lucky, I’m hoping I can convince the 10-year-old to do it, too, to help him improve his overall health and his fitness level.

Speaking of said 10-year-old, tonight is actually the first tryout for the hockey team he was on in the spring.  Obviously, since he’s at camp several hours away, he won’t be able to make it to the tryout. 🙁  I was already nervous about fall tryouts, since this is usually more “intense” than spring because the fall/winter season is 6 months long.  The fact that he has to miss the first tryout of the team we’re hoping to make doesn’t help my nerves!  But, it is what it is, and I can only hope that he will do well at the only other tryout, on Saturday.  {crossing fingers}

Besides fall hockey, the other thing on my mind is my running calendar—which is noticeably empty right now!  I’m signed up to run the last leg of the Detroit Free Press marathon relay in October (did I mention that before? If not, I will later…), but I still have three months before that event, with no races scheduled in between.  Eek!  I need to figure out what I’m going to do.  I’m debating doing a run in August—good golly, that’ll be hot.  Maybe the end of August?  We shall see…my sister picked up a whole stack of race flyers while she was waiting around for me to finish the 10k on Sunday, and she was pretty adamant that she wants me to find another one she can attend, so I think I need to start researching!

So what do you think about an August race? Would you do one?  Do you think I should give it a try or wait for September when it’s cooler?

Thanks for reading!!