Race: Bill Landers Building Bridges Memorial 5K
Date: May 9, 2015
Location: Glastonbury, CT
Official Time: 34:31
Official Lap: 11:07
Place: 301 / 463
Race Stats
Speed: ★ ★ ★ ★ (nice and open)
Hills: ★ ★ (small hills here and there)
Crowd: ★ ★ ★ ★ (great turnout)
Party: ★ ★ ★ .5 (a nice time with the folks from town)
T-Shirt: ★ ★ ★ (Bill Landers and I have a similar look!)
Perhaps the best race that I have ever run in. Not because of my time, but rather because it was my oldest daughter's first 5K race ever, and I had a blast running it with her and her friend from school. If you want to see all the details of the race, and some great photos in the photo album, check out the web page dedicated to this year's Bill Landers 5K race.
Sure parents talk about how cool it is to get to do things with their kids, and how special all this stuff is, but FOR REAL this was awesome! It all actually started when I was away in San Francisco last week for a conference. When I was coming out of one of our last sessions, my cell phone rang, and it appeared to be my wife. When I picked up, I quickly found out that it was my 8-year old calling me.
She had something exciting that she wanted to tell me. See, you may remember this, but they still have elementary school kids run a timed mile as part of P.E. Cassie had run her mile in about 11:30 back in the fall. Of late, I've been trying to get the kids more active outside, and I have had her running our 0.5 mile loop around our neighborhood a few nights a week. She's actually taken to it nicely, and I even time her now to give her a little personal motivation. It's been fun, and she enjoys the running.
Well, she was super excited to tell me that with her practice mile at school (they run the official one next week), she ran a 9:00 minute mile! Not only that, she also knew that I had the upcoming Bill Landers 5K race (there is a part of the race registration where the elementary schools compete to see who can register the most runners), and she wanted to run the 5K race with me!
I was so excited. Seriously! I told everyone at the conference that night the story. She had never run three miles before, so I wasn't sure how she would do, but I told her we would just take it as it comes, have a good time, set a good chilled pace and walk when we needed to. She was game, and I was elated. How cool that my kids were actually going to start getting into something that I really love too!
We did some math on her 9:00 minute mile, and gave ourselves some time to walk if needed, and set a goal of 40:00 for the race. Now here is the point where you know that this is a seriously cool thing. Most of the time I would be trying to figure out where I was going to come in with my own personal time - I would have probably shot for 25:00 to 25:30 for this race, but I was even more excited to see if we could: 1) finish the race and 2) get it all in under a good goal for her. When you make that switch from, "man, I'm not going to be able to run this race at a personal best for me," to "I'm so psyched to see how my little one can do in this thing," that's when this gets cool as a parent.
So the day of the race gets here and it's as awesome as I had thought. My little guy, Kyle, did a great job in the kids fun run. He's a little shy, but did a great job. He is quite the little T ball player, and I think will have a love of sports and athletics. I see him running this 5K and some more when he gets a little older too.
After his race, I was getting so excited to start the race with Cassie. We shot some great photos and were talking about how fun the run was going to be, and how we would take it easy if we needed to. Just then we ran into one of her best friends from school, and we decide to run all together.
For just a moment there was that feeling a parent gets when he realizes that your kids' friends are as important, and sometime more important, than their parents. For a second I had a twinge of, "maybe this won't be as special" if we don't run this together, just the two of us. And then I remembered this great book that I am reading right now about youth sports (Just Let the Kids Play, Bob Bigelow, 2001), and some of my leadership behaviors skills from my training at work last year. In a flash I thought, "no, this is going to be so much more fun for Cassie and me if we all run this together."
And I was so correct. These two had such a good time running together, and I had such a blast running with them. In fact, they were so much fun that I couldn't help but get shots of them running along the way, and Tweeting them as we went. All the chitter-chatter about elementary school was hilarious. They loved the paper cups of water, and that you can just throw them on the ground. The whole thing was just so much fun - something that us adults sometimes lose when we are trying to push ourselves for personal bests and the such with these races.
I did get a glimpse of my daughters competitive edge though. At the end she asked if we could sprint it on in. She still had plenty to go, and we were able to pass a few runners on the way into the finish line. I just love this picture that my wife got of us finishing together. It was really a special moment, and I will cherish this one for a long time.
So I will be looking forward to our next 5K together, and I can't wait to see if the other kids will find a love for running too. I'll have to sneak in some races to keep me on my clock for the race season this year, but I don't think I'll ever be able to turn down running these races with the kids. It's just too much fun, and too special. If you haven't done this ever or in a while, I recommend registering with an 8- or 9-year old for a 5K one of these weekends, and run it at their pace and see the race through their world. It's just too cool!