Boosterthon

Yesterday morning, Eli participated in his first solo running event. Many public schools in the area participate in Boosterthon to raise funds for the school. Eli raised just under $10/lap completed, and yesterday was the running of laps. The Boosterthon team set up small 'tracks' for each grade to run, outfitted the kids with cool white t-shirts so teachers could give them hash marks as they completed each lap, and lined them up to enter the course area by class. Music pounded, hands were clapping, and each class ran in, led by one or two kids with signs. Guess who got to hold a sign for his class!!

Ten minutes passed before they started the run; one lap of walking kicked it off, just to get the kids the hang of things. It's a good thing they did that too because once it started, it resembled a Nascar event. The kids were SO fast and none of them had breaks or a sense of how to cut corners and not run into each other. Eli started off so strong, sprinting the first few laps. He stopped for water around lap 10, but that's the only time I saw him do that. Even then, he grabbed some water and barely sipped it before he joined the runners again. And he didn't stick with friends and goof off; he seriously RAN the whole time. Never slowing down (even when we called his name), never complaining (even when I ran along side of him), never stopping. He got in 35 laps just before they blew the whistle, which is great since that was the max amount of laps the kids could get credit for.

Although he didn't nap after school, he told us that he was 'really really tired' when he got back to his classroom yesterday. He snored all night long, and when he woke up this morning, the pain set in. The poor kid limped all the way downstairs and then up the driveway when we walked to the bus. By the time he got to the top of the driveway, he had stopped limping, but even getting off of the bus today, he's still walking 'funny'.