My Kids Fund Run Made for a Proud Mom Moment

     I thought I'd backtrack my life by a few days and write about my kids Fund Run which took place at their schools the end of May. I would've written on the day it happened but I was a bit AWOL from blogging at that time. Why? For starters, I was at the fund run. But really, the reason is much less honorable. I was simply feeling overwhelmed and busy and blogging was just one more thing I had to do so I avoided it. Of course, now that I'm sitting here blogging about avoiding it I realize how much I missed it! :)

     So back to the Fund Run. Our local school is divided into two campuses. One is for the kindies-2nd graders and the other holds the 3-6th graders.  This means I had two Fund Run's to attend. My son's was on Thursday and my daughter's was on Friday.

     I didn't know what to expect from my son as this was his first year. However, I figured he'd do pretty good as he loves to run. The course ran the kids around the playground. It was a pretty good sized loop, about double the loop size at my daughter's school. All the kindies ran together with their teachers and principal for a period of 20-25 minutes. I never did see exactly how long they ran. I've gotta say, they were so incredibly CUTE and excited. At 5 and 6 years old most of them enjoy running and have the energy to do so. By 2nd or 3rd grade the enthusiasm level for Fund Run Day tends to drop off. The PTA supplied music for the kids to run to and it was blaring. The gun went off, well, actually just a teacher yelling "Go" and the kids ran. Immediately, my son got stopped behind a little girl who fell. His best buddy was in front of her and continued on. Bummer! The little girl was okay and they were off again. My son did so good. The look of determination on his little face was priceless. He ran and ran only stopping to walk a couple of times. He paced himself incredibly well and I was surprised to see just how good his form was. He looked as though he'd been running track for years. lol! When it was all said and done he'd done 13 laps which qualified him for 3rd place! His best buddy was 2nd place with 14 laps and some unknown kid to me did 15. Wow! The average was between 9-11 laps.  His teacher said, "Well, I'm not surprised he did so well. Look at his mom! All-Star!"
     I laughed and said, "Hardly, more like stubborn!"
     "Stubborn enough to finish, huh?" She replied. Yep! That's me. Stubborn enough to finish and that was the same look I saw on my son's face as he ran his laps. You bet I'm proud!

     The next day I arrived at my daughter's school with less grandeur expectations. My daughter wasn't as thrilled about the idea of the Fund Run. She is in 4th grade so the thrill of the Fund Run had run its course with her a long time ago. Running is hard work for her. She runs, when she runs, for the feeling of satisfaction she gets when it's all over and not for the pure joy of the process. Anyhow, I wasn't expecting her to run that many laps especially since last year she only did 12 - one of the least amounts out of her class. I showed up with my Amphipod handheld full of Gatorade for her. I think the knowledge that she had actual real-life sport drink gave her a mental boost and yes, probably a bit of a physical boost as well. It is sugar, afterall. The older kids ran for 30 minutes and I was shocked by what I saw. My daughter set off for her first loop and before I knew she was back around again. I gave her a word of encouragement and before I knew it she was back again and again and again and again. She was rocking it! I never even saw her stop to walk until the last 10 minutes. I heard some of the teachers commenting about how well a couple of the boys were doing. "Wow! He's got 23 laps". Hmmm .... my daughter had 22 laps at this point. I'm looking at other kids and their laps are considerably less. She stopped by me to get a drink of the Gatorade (she decided she didn't want to run with it) and I told her how proud I was of her but that it was okay to slow down if she needed to.
     "I'm okay," She told me and she was off again. She was focused, determined and yep, stubborn! She was not going to have the least amount of laps in her class this year! When it was all said and done she had 28 laps. She was 2nd place in her classroom and 1st place out of the girls in her classroom. Stunned and proud would sum up my emotions. Later I asked her what made her keep going this year. Her reply: "It wasn't that hard. I just started running slowly and kept going. Everyone else who was running fast got tired and stopped. I kept going."
     I hugged her and said, "That's what endurance running is all about. You're an endurance runner!" And she has the toenail to prove it. Yep, my baby has a black toenail. Next year, mommy needs to remember to make sure her toenails are clipped and her shoes fit properly. Oops! She's pretty proud of it though. :) Maybe I'll create a runner out of her yet.

     Suffice it to say, I am one proud mommy and to prove it I'll now post photos of my little runners. :) Ds is wearing the black/red shorts and my dd is the only girl in that group of boys. lol!

Not her best photo ever but not only is a black toenail a sign of a real runner, so is a bad race photo.  ;)  Here she is coming across the finish line of the Aflac IronGirl 5K we did in September of 2009.  She's got the same look of determination in this photo but her eyes are open!  By the way, she wants to run the IronGirl again!