Proud Momma Bear

What a fun race. Today was the first race for my boy(s) this season.

James has been running regularly for 2+ weeks to get ready for Crazylegs 8K at the end of the month. Today, I had planned to race the 10K, but that plan got botched as: (1) coach switched up my 20 miler to Sunday at my request and 4 hard workouts may be pushing it this close in; (2) it was 75 degrees; (3) it was also supposed to be thunderstorming; and (4) I knew James would appreciate the support in his first race this season.

Long story short, I decided mid-week that I was going to pace James rather than race. James is 10. He is in 5th grade and he is something of a natural runner. He loves running with me, but his ultimate goal is to get fast for football. And he is wicked fast. But he needs endurance, so for the first time ever, he has started training. Running. He has run many, many races, but off a soccer season or football season. This season, he is going to train. And today was race #1.

At the last minute, Jake decided he wanted to run too. Even though he had no running buddy (John is hurt) and even though he ran yesterday with me and was sore. I told him to just take it easy and have fun. He told me he was worried he'd have to walk a lot and would be around 40 minutes. I said, no worries, it will be awesome. When I finish, I'll come find you and we'll finish together. Yeah.

My friend Michelle joined us. She is supah speedy, but had a bit of a foot injury, so she was going to run with James and I too. Jake wasn't 100% pleased (understatement) that James had TWO crew persons and he had none. But I reminded him he just decided to run an hour ago and this had been in the books for a while. He was good with that.

We got downtown and lined up. It was warm (low 70s), but nice on the lake. The 10K took off and I was happy I was not trying to race in this heat. It kicks my butt and I don't need that mentally now. Now, I pace James. We lined up and got ready to go. The "go" went off and so did we. James was struggling from the outset - not sure why. Pressure? But Jake was right there with me. Plan was to start at 7:30 and see what happens since James usually blazes out way faster. Mile one clicked off around 7:45. We hit the turn-around and Jakey was still blazing along (rock star). He dropped off right after the turn around and I tried to pick James up a bit. He did awesome. Mile 2 was around a 7:30 pace. We closed in on the finish and as usual, he hit a gear I couldn't and finished a couple seconds ahead of me for a 22:56 finish.

I grabbed a cup of water and got ready to go after Jake. But there he was, barreling up the finish. 24:10. Rock stars.

We did this race last year and James ran 28:15 and Jakey ran 29:38. Talk about improvement. And consistency. That Jake is a competitor!!!