Road Race

For the past several months, nearly our entire family has been running. It all started with Daddy. He has run medium distance races since he ran cross country in high school. I am a lot like him and have the same interests, so I took up running 2 years ago. I ran a 5k, and decided I loved running. So I trained for another 5k, and a 10-mile race, and completed my first half-marathon last fall.

After Ben saw my first race, he decided he’d like to try running. So we trained together and he did a mile race and decided to stick with running for awhile. After the twins and Josiah watched him race, they decided they wanted to run too (can you see where this is going?) So this year, we all ran! We have our own cross country team! J

Preparing to run our races earlier in the summer.

Several weeks back, we woke up before dawn to eat some toast and go run in some races. It was still dark and quite chilly when we left. That’s part of the fun of running; going out while it’s still dark and watching the sunrise before the race begins!

I ran a 10 mile race that day in 1 hour, 33 minutes. That’s around a 9:15 pace per mile. I’ve never run a race that fast before, and I paid for it later! I suffered a bit from the heat, but the feeling of accomplishment far outweighed the temporary discomfort.

Dad and Ben ran a 5k together. This was Ben’s first time doing a 5k, so he was a bit nervous. The fastest he had ever finished during our training runs was 32 minutes. Daddy tends to be somewhere in the 25-30 minute range, but they still decided to run together.

Ben did a great job keeping up with Dad and they finished in 28 minutes! They were quite happy with their time.

The twins ran in a 1 mile race (their first race ever.) I decided to run with them just for the fun of it, even though I hadn’t finished my race that long before. They finished in 9 minutes, and have decided to do a 5k in the near future.

Josiah did a kids race, which was also his first ever. He was VERY excited and couldn’t wait for the race to start. Unfortunately, because it was so large, he was in the 7^th heat and had to wait over ½ an hour after the official starting time. But he flew down the road when his turn came! Now we’re trying to convince him that he would do great in a 1-mile race, but he’s still skeptical. We’ve still got time to convince him!

After the race, we ate some pizza and pop that we all got free because we ran. We also went to a play area they had set up for the kids, and Josiah enjoyed a few games.

Playing on the bungee course.

And that wrapped up our racing for the summer! We’re hoping to do a few more races in the fall, and then call it a year. We look forward to running more together in the future!