Race Day

The Annual Cougar Chase race, put on by a foundation that supports our elementary school, has become a big deal at our house in recent years.  This year all four kidlets and Dr. Peds were signed up to run, and this is what our chalkboard looked like the day before the race, prior to a strong thunderstorm rinsing away all the chalk.

YaYa trained for the 5K race at running club after school.  Dr. Peds was scheduled to also run the 5K, but he ended up stuck at the hospital on the morning of race day and missed out.  The Banana decided to join Mr. SP running the 1K race this year, and Mr. TOF was signed up to run the 1/2 K race.

The morning of race day I was up at 4:30 a.m. because Dr. Peds had a call on his pager, and I couldn’t fall back asleep.  Despite my early rising, there was still a major scramble to get everyone up, dressed, and out the door to the car in time to drive down to the race.  And in the typical fashion of our family, tremendous drama was involved.  One child was angry about having to get up.  Another child was upset about not having running shorts.  Dr. Peds informed me that he wasn’t able to come after all. Mr. TOF wanted to stay home.   The weather was weird and I changed clothes three times trying to figure out what would work.  It took seven times longer to pack the water bottles than I ever dreamed possible.  The scrambled eggs were slow to cook.  It looked like rain so I tried to round up a stash of umbrellas.

Dr. Peds noticed that The Banana’s last front tooth was extra wiggly and decided it needed to come out before she ran so she didn’t choke on it or something.  In the end it wasn’t as ready as he thought and there was quite a bit of pain involved, and hearing my child in pain was the last straw and I ended up sobbing uncontrollably along with her, which made Dr. Peds kind of try to pull out some of his hair.

In the end the tooth came out and my girl is a gorgeous toothless wonder.  I’ll post special pictures of that soon.

We got to the race and I pinned everyone’s bib number on and we got YaYa off to the starting line for the 5K.  They soon were off, many heads bobbing through the forests on the extra muddy trails, since it has been raining for days here.

YaYa had a great race and finished third in her age group.  She was excited about that, but a little sad that she didn’t have the opportunity to beat her dad, which was her major goal this year.  He was fully prepared to give her a run for her money.

She’s one sleek and swift girl, and she loves the 5K distance.

This is what her legs looked like after running on the muddy trails.  She said it was fun!

This is what my socks looked like after she took her shoes off when she got home.  It turns out that she couldn’t find her own socks, so she “inadvertently” borrowed mine.  Hmmmmmm.

Dr. Peds arrived in time for Mr. TOF’s race.  Both Dr. Peds and YaYa ran with my overwhelmed cautious boy, who was NOT a fan of the experience.  Halfway through the race he yelled, “You NO HELP!” at YaYa so she faded into the spectators, and then he spent the rest of the race telling Dr. Peds, “You MEAN!” and pointing off the course  looking for a way to escape.  When that didn’t work, he sucked his thumb and walked the rest of the lap, and when someone handed him a ribbon after the first lap instead of the second, Dr. Peds called it good and vacated the race.  Mr. TOF was thrilled with the ribbon, though!  He also was a big fan of earning a T-shirt that matched the big kids, and now he talks very fondly of running in his race.  Oh how memory can be deceiving!

Finally it was time for the 1K race!  Since they were both eight years old and younger, The Banana and Mr. SP were in the same heat.  The Banana had been practicing for this race for weeks.  Every day she asked me if we could go running to practice.  Of course, I’m not a runner, but I ran as much as I could and tried to at least keep my swift kindergartener in sight as we practiced running to the park and back as often as it worked out in the past few weeks.  Although I really don’t enjoy running, it was really fun to run with The Banana because she’s a very encouraging little person, “Don’t worry, Mama!  It’s OK that I’m faster.  I’ve had a lot more practice running races!”  (Very true).  “Keep trying.  You’ll get better!” she’d say to me.  Sometimes Mr. SP would come along too.  He inherited a few more of my running genes than his sisters did, I’m afraid.  He was not always very motivated to do practice runs.

The Banana Finished her 1K race with a time of 6:19, and she was super excited to finish first for girls her age. It helps that she’s a lot taller than girls her age, but   she worked really hard and ran very, very smart.  Mr. SP was half a minute behind at 6:44, which was a great time for him also, but he was was really, really frustrated that  his little sister beat him.  He had a great time playing with his friends before and after the race, though.  He has plans for a lot more practicing next year.

All of of the medals were made out of clay by art students this year.  I thought that was an ingenious idea.

The morning was chilly, but it was great running weather, and great picture taking weather, and it was fun to see all the healthy kids running.  I’m happy that this event motivates my kidlets to be active in the spring.  We don’t do a lot of team sports, and I’m happy that running works so well for them, even though it surprises me because I hated running so much even when I was a kid.   It’s fun to have goals and be part of something.