5K

After Nathan did his first triathlon back in October, he was hooked on racing.  Kids' tris, however, are few and far between, so he started to think about running a 5K.

And I told him I'd run with him.  No problem.  I run six miles in the mornings, I can certainly do a little 5K walk-run with my kid.  Such a supportive mom.  A friend sent me a link to the Redemption Race calendar, and when I saw that there was a 5K at Natural Bridge Caverns, I signed us up.

This morning dawned clear and crisp, and the Cavern property really does have some spectacular scenery.  (The half marathoners got to start in the cave!  Something worth training for.)  We got our race bibs on and set off.

And he beat me!

The child who has never run three miles in his life beat me!  In fact, he beat everyone except for the all-around male and all-around female winners!  He was first in his age category and third all around with a time of 27 minutes and 49 seconds.  I couldn't believe it.

He is so very competitive that I quickly realized it wasn't going to do me any good to try to run with him.  No matter how fast I ran, he ran faster.  Couldn't let mom get ahead!  The hills were getting me.  (There are no hills on my treadmill unless I put them in, and, really, why would I do that?)  I also hadn't anticipated how challenging a trail run can be.  (There are absolutely NO rocks on the treadmill.)  And then there were the downhills.  Nathan ran downhill like, well, like a kid.  Arms out to the side- full speed ahead.  Wheee!  I saw him pass five adults (myself included) going downhill.  He asked me later why adults are so cautious going downhill.  Maybe because we fear sliding down on our faces?

Nathan was fascinated with the cool race chip technology.  He headed over to check his results.

Then, he polished off about 1000 calories worth of pastries in just a few minutes.  (I ate an orange.  The No Meat Athlete shirt did not stop them from offering me a sausage wrap.)

I didn't do so bad myself, I suppose.  First in my age category (thanks, Nathan) with a time of 28 minutes and 53 seconds.  Racing was a lot of fun and I can see why people get hooked.  Looking forward to more racing (and probably more defeats.)