Manheim is the coolest town ever. Have I mentioned that before. If not, here it is for the record. So this year our town did a Rock N' Glow 5K run to support the Manheim Downtown Development Group, which hosts community events to increase tourism and foot traffic as well as unify the community and promote family fun events.
There was a 1 mile race and a 5K. All of the kids wanted to join me on the 5K, even though it was the evening of Bella's last musical performance after three days of performing multiple shows.
I wasn't convinced she was up to pushing herself that hard and to this point she had been my main running companion. I told the kids that they could all run the 1 mile and then if they still felt good I would let them run the 5K with me which didn't even start until 9pm. Needless to say the 1 mile race went well. The kids surprised me and J proved his athletic/running prowess coming in 4th place. I still felt guilty I had held him back with the rest of us for the first quarter mile. I know he totally could have won first place.
After the 1 miler, Issac and Kody were content to not run the 5K. Wyatt and J wanted to both run it. And Bella was happy to watch the boys since she was on the fence in terms of tiredness anyway. Plus the following week was field day and she had qualified to run the mile and so felt like she had ample opportunity to run in the near future.
I only had 1 criteria for racing with me, no walking. I told them I didn't care how slow we had to run, but we needed to keep the running gait up the entire time. Well they proved to be up to the challenge. Wyatt struggled almost completely silently and later told Travis he had cried during part of the run, but that he knew he could push himself to do harder things than he had to this point. I felt awful that he cried and that it was such a struggle, but so proud that he pushed through. Because of the confidence from doing that hard thing, he runs more often with me now. J is my newest partner in running. He is way faster than me, but hasn't built up the distance yet.
Sadly Bella hasn't run with me since. But where she has left off, Kody has picked up. And just from this summer he has gotten way faster, 2 miles in 20 minutes. He is only five and pint size so I consider that awesome. From this awesome event, we now have family bonding through running. I love that this healthy lifestyle now seems super cool to my kids. I can't wait for next year!
