RUN!

I don't love to run...but I do love what running does for my body.  When the boys were younger and learning to ride their bikes without training wheels, they loved to ride their bikes with me while I ran.  They couldn't keep up, and I often ran beside them, pushing their back to maintain my pace.  Soon they were much faster and much more coordinated on their bikes, they would circle me as I tried to maintain a pace fast enough to keep the ride interesting for them.  They are growing up so fast...recently the boys have started to run with me.  I lost a year while I was pregnant with Kyra, so while I was busy gaining 50 pounds with pregnancy and now struggle to drop that weight my boys have continued to get stronger.

I remember years of playing hide-and-go-seek, and tag, where I feigned ambitious efforts to "catch" them, how many times I dramatized a struggle to "get" them and I marveled at their remarkable speed all the while confident in my superior adult strength and speed.  Alas, those days are gone.  My boys are without a doubt faster and stronger than I am--this knowledge slapped me in the face yesterday at the Lake of the Woods 5K run.

On the drive up to Lake of the Woods I listened and mildly encouraged the boys as they "talked some trash."  They were so confident that they would beat me.  Both wanted to finish in the top ten.  But I had my doubts...  They had participated in a local race a few weeks earlier, "The Run for the Birds."  Both had done well beating me and finishing in the top ten.  But I knew that I had been training harder, I felt fitter, stronger, faster.  I wasn't so sure that they would beat me this time.  And I was pretty sure that a top ten finish wasn't going to be so achievable, this was a bigger race, more competition, etc.  All the boys (Johan included) were sure that I would finish last, the big question mark was who (among our family) would finish first.

The race was a 5K out and back, so half way through the race I got a good look at who was in front of me.  The lead at the turn around was held boy two men, followed not far behind by....C!!!!!  "Third place!  Third place!" I yelled to him as I swerved out to high five him.  He was intense, barely cracked a smile.  Behind him a man I didn't know, and then...K?!?!!!!  My boys were in the top 5!!!!!  I swerved again, "5Th Place K! 5th Place!"  Next was Johan, and he wasn't right on K's heels.  "Your boys are ahead!" I shouted, and we exchanged exaggerated looks of disbelief as he threw up his arms signaling that he was all in.  I rounded the turn, and I could barely see the boys' orange shirts in the distance.  As I struggled to maintain my pace I wondered if the boys could sustain their efforts, and my mind wandered to earlier runs where I struggled to keep them entertained so that they would peddle their bike just a little further so I could get just a little more running in.

Cut to the finish line...C finished first and wanted to know if he could give an interview to the newspaper and the radio station!  C was first overall not just for his age bracket, K was third OVERALL!  Johan finished fourth, turning in a very respectable time of his own.  I was the first female finisher, but well behind my boys!  I am a proud mama!

I read, with tears in my eyes, today's Herald and News article, "Boy, 11, wins 5K's Crown."