Do a Race with Mama

For regular readers of this blog, you are well aware of the importance of running in our household, particularly for me.  You can probably also recall the various posts about how I came to run and what motivates me.  And maybe you can remember back to this spring when Natalie ran her first kid's race at the Flying Pig.

Kids are so impressionable.  Of course I would love nothing more than for Natalie and Ben to both want to run and have the same passion for races, and the connection between setting a running goal and achieving it and real life goals.  The meaning of hours of sweat, pain, highs and lows, the emotion of race day and the overwhelming feeling of finishing is not lost on me.  Ever.  I would trade a lifetime of PRs to watch people finish who never in a million years thought they could reach the finish line.  More inspirational than watching the winner is sticking it out until the last athletes triumphantly cross the finish line.  In coming to support me, I hope that my kids pick up on those things too.  I hope that they cheer just as loudly for a stranger with no one else there as they do for me.

In the last year and a half I have gone to many races alone, because it just makes more sense than to drag the kids out of bed at 5am, cart them all over a race course in a crowd.  When they're older that will be more fun and more feasible, but for now, I understand going solo.  But this weekend was different.  I had my three biggest fans waiting eagerly for me at the finish line (even though one of them had fallen asleep just before the start, and continued to snooze until well after I was done).  With about 100 meters to go, I spied my cheering section, grabbed Natalie's hand and we sprinted to the finish line together!

Unlike at her kid's race, where she was intimidated by the crowd, she was all smiles and loving every minute of running her race with mama.  She didn't know that the race we were doing was just the tail end of many miles I had already run, and she didn't care.  All she knew is that she was holding on to my hand as tight as she could and her little legs were flying.  She was all smiles as she crossed the finish line.  (The finish area can sometimes be pretty chaotic....it's loud, crowded, volunteers are handing out medals, runners are trying to grab waters and snacks, people are hurrying through, some people are stopped.  But she didn't mind.)  She was proud of that 100m run, and marched right beside me, let the volunteer place my medal around her neck, and looked at me for approval.  Of course, I was beaming.

I just hope that she knows I was beaming at her having achieved what she couldn't just 3 months ago.  To run unafraid.  The effort is what made my heart happy, not that she was doing something that I love.  For many reasons, this race will always rank among my favorite.