The Annual Cougar Chase

Mr. SP, YaYa and Dr. Peds were all signed up to run the 5K race at the Cougar Chase this year.  YaYa has been running long distances in track all spring, but she was not feeling well the morning of the cougar chase and stayed home.  Mr. SP was on the fence for a long time about whether he should run the 1K or the 5K this year.  In the end, after a lot of encouragement and peer pressure (everyone his age seemed to be running the 5K) he decided to go for it.  Unfortunately, running club at school was scheduled on days that we were not able to transport him home after school, so training was left for at home.  We are bad parents, and kept forgetting to take him out to run, so poor Mr. SP did not show up to the Cougar Chase in fine and stunning shape.  Still, he went for it!  Dr. Peds ran with him, and amazingly they were able to keep running the whole entire way!  I was so proud of him.  There may have been a bit of drama on the trail.  Mr. SP may have spent a great deal of time gasping away that he was going to die. Dr. Peds may have had to talk him through panic attacks with descriptions of all the great snacks he was going to get to eat after crossing the finish line.   But he did it!  And a 5K is a long run!  (The trail is not an easy one, either).  

I loved his headband, borrowed from Dr. Peds, to keep the sweat out of his eyes. 

As a reward he got to spend 2 hours on the iPad that afternoon after he finished learning to mow the lawn.  I figured that was fair.  He slept well that night. The Banana was registered in the 1K race, but never one to be left behind in the family, she is determined to train for the 5K next year.  In fact, this year when Dr. Peds told Noah to run around the block a certain number of times in the evening, or when I took the two of them on a long run (they ran a mile at a time while I walked, keeping an eye on them far from behind), she was right in there with her brother, yelling at him to keep running.  And then she ran farther than him each time, because that girl can run and run and run, I’m telling you.  She probably could have spontaneously just run this 5K.  But next year we WILL do a better and more consistent job training, and it will be a far more pleasant experience for her.

Anyway, all that running with her brother completely paid off for the 1K race, because The Banana for the first time ever ran the heat of kids 8 and older, and she was the very first girl to come across the finish line.  It was so fast that the runners took off and I spent three and a half minutes dealing with a fussy Mr. TOF and looked up and she was crossing the finish line!  I didn’t even catch her with my camera.

Mr. Trouble on Feet was super duper excited to run the Kitty K as well.  I missed pictures of this too, though, because I had my camera out and ready at the side of the course, when a group of stray kids started coming right for me and nearly knocked me over!  I lost track of Mr. TOF and missed getting a picture, and that’s perfectly fine.  It was a great morning.  The weather was chilly and sunny, good for warm runners.  It was nice that it was not a downpour of rain like last year.