This year, I was so honored to run with some of the most amazing young ladies in Santa Cruz – H’s 9 and 7-year olds and a friend’s 10-year old. Plus, I got to borrow Jenny’s double BOB and had both of my little girls with me!!
It was so amazing to watch these young ladies finish. The first mile, I was really worried. Nobody seemed to want to run much and I felt that didn’t bode well for the remainder of the 5K. And, Nikki, who was going to walk with K. if K. bonked early (which she did), ended up stopping to walk within maybe that first 1/4 to 1/2 mile. Her very sweet daughter still had some gas in the tank, so she went with us.
I don’t think I felt like I could stop encouraging them along at any point in time! We saw H., Thing 1 and A. at Natural Bridges, the turnaround point, but K. felt like she wanted to still keep going. It had already been a struggle to get her to 1.5 miles, but I was too distracted and took it at face-value that she’d be able to run the rest of the race.
The second half was very painful. K. complained about her feet hurting and about being unable to run. I could see in Isa’s and K.’s faces that they were struggling. By this point, though, T. was warmed up and asking if we could run after only short, a few yards, of walking. I was struggling with what to do.
I voiced my concerns — should she wait for Nikki on the sidewalk, (I even asked Fiona if she could walk with K. but she refused) — or should T. run ahead and wait for us at the finish, but I wasn’t comfortable with either, so I kept rallying them so we could all stay together.
With about 1 mile left, I pointed out that we could see the finish line. All we had to do was head towards the big, black inflatable finish line! Hashed out a strategy to jog for a bit so we could reserve some energy to finish strong. Once we were close enough to the finish…where we could really see it, we were going to run as fast as we could across the finish!
And they all finished!! I can remember when I did my first long run (the Jungle Run half) and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. I felt so good crossing that finish line. I sure hope the girls will remember how great it felt to know they finished and I hope they will carry this success with them always.
Crossed at 49:10. That’s a ~15:50 pace. I’ll bet we can beat that next year!
As for my own running training. I started out the year strong, but just as I was ramping up training for the upcoming SC Half, I injured myself and stopped running for nearly 3 weeks. I did a short run with Jenny on Thursday (about 2.5 miles) and this 5K is the longest I’ve been on my feet running since the injury! Happy to report that I seem to be on the up and up although tonight I ran the treadmill for only 35 minutes and I’m feeling some twinge (perhaps paranoia…we’ll see).