Running

[naomikritzer]

During Molly's first week of school, she brought home a flier for a Kids' Marathon. During the weekend of the Twin Cities Marathon, there's a family event on Saturday near the State Capitol. They have 5K, 1 mile, and 1/2 mile events for kids and families. Molly thought this sounded really neat and wanted to do the half mile race. I never ran as a kid (unless forced to do so) but Ed did, so he suggested to her that she would need to practice running, and they agreed that she'd run around the block every night and maybe do a longer run on weekends, to get ready for the race.

She stuck with this and didn't complain, though she did note this past week that she was really looking forward to the race so she could quit running around the block every night.

The race was today. (The real Twin Cities marathon is tomorrow.) They ran out and back on John Ireland Blvd. The kids didn't get any sort of official time, though Ed watched the clock and timed Molly as well as he could. Assuming Ed got the time right and it really was a half mile (Ed speculated it might have been a slightly short half mile), she did it in 4 1/2 minutes, which is a faster pace than I ran to run a mile, back before I hurt my knee. And her legs are a lot shorter than mine. I am impressed.

The first kid across the finish line was a girl who looked eight or nine years old, with her hair in pigtails. She was fast. She crossed the finish line way ahead of anyone else -- I didn't time her, but seriously, maybe 30 seconds ahead? Way ahead.


Molly commented after the race that it was a lot more fun than training. Why? Was it running with the other kids, or the beautiful weather, or getting to run in downtown St. Paul? No: "I got to pass people."

Comments

[princessluryeal.livejournal.com]

lol slightly short half mile XD

Three cheers for Molly!

[jimlawrence.livejournal.com]

My daughter loved running when she was a kid and was always entering these half mile or one mile kid's runs. Finally, when she was 12 I agreed that she was big enough to move up to 5K races. She loved it -- especially getting ribbons or trophies for being first or second in her age group -- and in 8th grade joined the cross-country team. She continued in cross-country and added spring track & field and winter indoor track as a high school freshman, but then dropped running sports as a sophomore because she simply did not want to spend her summer running the five or more miles of "unofficial" training she needed to do to be on what was one of the best high school girls cross-country teams in the state.

Jill still enjoys running (at age 24) -- we did a 5k a couple of weeks ago and she is after me to enter a five miler with her that is coming up in three weeks -- but as a source of exercise and for fun, no longer looking for medals or ribbons.

Running is a great sport for kids (and adults too) -- hope Molly continues to enjoy passing people.