The girls’ school had its annual track day today. There was a mile race for the third-graders. Claire bravely took pet in this race and finished near end, tied with a new friend, Anna, who she met on the track.
Molly took part in the 1/4-mile race for the pre-K class. Molly finished as second place for per-K girls and got a medal! A total of three pre-K girls participated, and one girl finished behind Molly. Still, second place is second place, and a medal is a medal!
I was heading out for a run when Molly asked — no, insisted — to come with me. We had a good time doing a brisk job around the block.
Claire’s school hosted a fun run for the students this weekend. Claire got to take part in the quarter-mile run around the track at the middle school. She was not too enthusiastic about the run until she got there and saw her friends. Claire finished near the end of the pack, but to be fair, one of her friends took a nasty tumble on the second turn, and I think Claire slowed down to see what was going on.
Molly was thrilled to get a shot at running the track after the race was over. We asked if she wanted to run, and she said, “Yeah!” So I thought I’d take her for a run on one straightaway side of the track. But Molly turned the corner and just kept going. She wanted to do the whole track. Molly gave it her all, bouncing up and down like a bunny rabbit down the track.
Kit got some great pictures with our new Cannon G12 camera, so mostly, I wanted to include those.
As she had a few years ago for the Peachtree Road Race, Kit convinced me to go run in the Capital 10k fun run today. I only registered yesterday at the “last-minute” registration at the convention center. I was not really in shape to run the full 6 miles, and our morning was squeezed for time, so I decided to take advantage of the fact that our house was almost exactly along the half-way point of the course. The plan was for Kit and the girls to drop me off at the starting line, drive back to our house, and wait for me in the crowds along Enfield Road. I would run the first half of the race, bow out at our house, and get on with the day. This was a good plan. Only later would I find out that our house, besides being almost exactly half way through the course, was also located almost exactly at the highest point on the course. So I would be running mostly uphill for 3 miles. Believe me, that last stretch burned!
Anyways, Kit and the girls were a welcome sight at that highest point. Claire, as always, had made some friends, and the girls had managed to borrow some pom-poms from someone nearby. I decided that I did, in fact, want to exit the race at our house and suggested maybe next year I could run the whole thing, when I was better prepared and we hopefully did not have haircuts and furniture shopping to deal with that same morning.
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| You can see Claire running quickly, mostly towards the ball, in the middle-right of this picture |
At halftime Claire seemed concerned and a little dismayed, and she sort of wanted to just go home. She said she could never get to the ball. I told her that she was running faster than almost any kid, and if she gets a chance, don’t worry and don’t wait; just kick the ball as hard as she can (I guess nevermind which direction the ball goes). In the second half, I prodded myself to yell out “Kick the ball, Claire!” whenever she was in range. She did get a few kicks on the ball this time around. She even managed to clear the ball from her home team’s goal area a couple of times. This seemed to make her feel marginally better, although she still was not having too much fun. When the final whistle blew, and the game seemed to stop, she ran over to me and said, “Is the game over?” I said, “I think so”, and she replied, “Yeah!!!” I was proud of her for sticking through the whole game and even giving it something extra in the second half. As far as I can tell, the Tornadoes probably lost, but the game’s outcome did not seem to be of any real significance to anyone.
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| Pre-game drills |
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| Time to cool it off |
Yesterday on the way home from school, Claire said, “Maybe tonight, after we do all our work and stuff, we could go for a walk.” I don’t know what inspired this. Maybe the new neighborhood? Maybe all the walking we did on our vacation in Florida a couple of weeks ago? Maybe the beautiful spring weather? It was brilliant how she framed it as “after we do all our work and stuff” so I would not object or say, “Well, sorry, but we don’t have time”. Not that she had to convince me. A walk in our new neighborhood on a nice spring evening? I was sold!
I did tell Claire that there was not much time for a walk, so we would have to eat dinner quick. Claire said yes, but we should not eat too fast because we did not want to get food stuck in our throat. When dinner was done, Claire and I got geared up for our walk. Claire suggested that Kit stay at home because Molly, who was asleep, would not want to be left all alone. Wow. Claire had all the angles figured out.
Claire and I took a 10-minute walk around the corner and back. We talked mostly about street walking safety, the plants and trees, and some of the pretty houses. Claire wanted to go longer, but we needed to get her back for bath & bed.
Tonight, Claire suggested we go for a walk again. This was not a bath night, so we had a little more time. This time Claire wanted to go for a longer walk and bring along her water bottle in case she got dehydrated. We brought along Muffin this time too, as per Kit’s suggestion. A block or so out, Claire said she wanted to run to get more exercise. So Claire, Muffin, and I jogged down the street. After another block or so, Claire asked for some of her water, and Muffin was panting a lot. We did intervals the rest of the time, walking a block, jogging the next, and so on for about 15 minutes. This was all Claire’s idea. She said exercise is really important, and kids and adults should do it every day. I really don’t know where she is getting this crazy information.
Technically, it took me two and a half hours to run/walk the 6.2 mile course through the heart of Atlanta. The actual time was not as bad as it sounds. I spent an hour and a half at the starting line, near the Borders where we take Claire for story time with Miss Wendy on Saturdays. I was waiting for 50,000 runners to get going ahead of me. I had made the mistake of entering in the “casual runner and walker” section, which put me in the last section of the race, the “heart and soul of the Peachtree” someone said on a loudspeaker as we finally crossed the starting line. I could have gone a little quicker if there weren’t so many slow people in my way!
That’s nice, you may say, but this is Claire’s blog. What does this have to do with Claire?
Well, in a way, she got me into the race. You see, the first two years we lived in Atlanta, we ignored the Peachtree Road Race entirely, even though it runs only a mile or two from our house. Last year, because we had Claire to entertain and did not have the viable option of sitting around the house on our keesters, we went to watch the race from the sidelines in Peachtree Hills. It was amazing to watch the sea of humanity pass down Peachtree Road, all types of people sweating, smiling, some in costumes, many dumping water on their own heads. I was impressed, and I said aloud that it would be fun to actually do the race next year, before we (maybe) move. Of course, I was not in running shape, and it seemed basically impossible to run six miles. Besides, just getting a number in the race was tough. It was just a nice (abstract) comment.
A few months later, Kit showed up with an application from the Emory hospital. I could get into the race as an Emory spouse. How could I pass this up?
After a very untimely knee injury and the ensuing three week “accelerated” training regimen (at nights after Claire was asleep), I finally made it to the Peachtree sort of in shape and had lots of fun in the race. If not for Claire getting us out of the house, we would have never seen the big race much less been in it. Thanks, Claire, for getting me off my butt.
McG Kids 