First 5K

For at least the last two years, Eli and I have been planning his first official 5K. We've signed up for two or three, only to have sports or travel get in the way, and he's trained up to three miles a few times without earning a shirt or a medal.

So when we found out that Gigi's Playhouse was sponsoring a 5K this spring, we jumped on it as a family activity. Lehr and Maddux planned to run and walk while pushing Ruby in the stroller, and Eli and I planned to run at a pace set by him. As expected, sports schedules came along and rained on that parade. Maddux's game would be too close to allow for her to participate, and Eli's game was going to be cutting it very close. Eli was very adamant about running anyway though, so Lehr took Maddux to her game while Eli, Ruby and I went to the race with the plan to meet at Maddux's game as soon as we finished the 5K.

Eli was SO proud to wear his green race shirt as soon as we arrived. We talked a little about strategy ahead of time, and we agreed that something around 33 minutes would be great. The main goal for Eli was just to not stop running. The organizers ran us through a quick warm-up and then the race started. Eli and Ruby and I moved through the crowd at a decent pace; I tried to slow him a little so that he didn't run out of steam too quickly. The first half was great, but in the second half we did hit a very steep hill. Had Eli not been there, I may have walked at the top because of the extra stroller weight. Eli kept going though, so I matched his stride and we even sprinted the last few tenths of a mile. Eli finished at 33:13...so very proud.

We grabbed a water and he told me, "No way could I do a 10K....that was a really long race!" He seemed fine, but on the 25 minute drive to Maddux's softball game, Eli fell asleep next to Ruby in the back seat.