T's Festival of Races

A bit blurry, but he was moving.

Two years ago, Hubs paced T to a single-year age course record of 40:18 for male, age five in our community's Festival of Races 5km men's race. That was actually three minutes slower than what he'd run on the Cape over the summer, but he ran it in a monsoon and while fighting a cold.

Last year he was poised to set the record for male, age six, but was diagnosed with pneumonia five days before race day, and the doctor said a 100 meter race would be okay, but not 3.1 miles. So Josh A. got to retain his record, which is a respectable one.

This year, T was adamant that he did not want to run this race. So I signed myself up. I'm trying to retain some amount of triathlon fitness, and regular racing is going to be an incentive to get myself out the door twice a week to run.

Training with him along has not gone well. He crabs, moans, complains, drags his feet, tries to outdo me by walking fast -- an incentive for me to move fast enough to make that impossible for him, which has turned into a handy training tactic, actually -- and states over and over again that he hates running. Which is ridiculous -- he loves running. His month of track camp was the highlight of his summer. He flies from one end to the other on the soccer field. "Don't let him get by you!" shout the kids from the other teams, knowing that it's all over if there's no one but the goalie between him and the net-- regardless of where on the field he got the ball-- because no one is going to catch up to him to get the ball away before he gets a shot on goal.

But I'm not going to argue, and I most certainly am not going to spend thirty dollars to force a kid to run a race he doesn't want to run. Even though he could easily set the male, age seven record for the course. My plan was to dress him to run and show up in time for the men's race. Generally once he gets to a race, he gets caught up in the excitement, and he has been disappointed in the past being told that nope, he couldn't run because he said he didn't want to, so we didn't sign him up and we didn't bring money to sign him up that morning.

But we got to talking about the race one afternoon after he'd run a half mile at school for gym in 3:05. He'd run a 3:03 racing against 12- to-14-year-old girls during track camp and coming in ahead of all but two of them -- and earning himself a boys' seven-to-nine blue ribbon while also setting a huge record in our running club's record books. The fact that he nearly repeated that feat with zero competition and no Mom in the stands yelling, "GO, T, GO!!" speaks volumes to his talent and determination. Not to mention a very strong competitive streak.

He was proud and happy. So I asked, "Are you sure you don't want to try for that record in that race on Sunday?"

"Hmm, I think I do," he said. I asked Hubs if he'd be willing to run with him and pace him. "I don't think I can stay with him any more," said Hubs. But he was willing to pace him for the first kilometer -- it's so wonderful that this race actually marks the kilometers as well as the miles -- and then tell him to run his own race from there. That way he could make sure that T didn't go out too fast. The course is closed to traffic and since the men's race is run separately from the women's, I would be there to fetch him out of the finish chute.

Race day pre-dawn arrived with another monsoon in progress. Oh boy. Here we go again. He was so wet and so cold after that race two years ago. Soaked to the bone. And I was not looking forward to splooshing through 3.1 miles of downpour. But we'd paid our money.

T did something to his foot during soccer the day before. I can't identify the problem for sure -- maybe achilles, maybe twisted his ankle, maybe plantar fasciitis -- but I hear that kids in cleats come up with foot and ankle problems all the time. We did an ice bath several times on Saturday and on race morning I popped an ibuprofen at him. He wasn't limping, so with some misgivings, we decided to let him run.

But someone had changed his mind. Oh this morning we heard all about it. "Why do you always make me run these hard races?" was just one of the many moans and groans and complaints and gripes. He did.not.want.to.run. He didn't like the shirt, he didn't like the shorts, he didn't like that he needed to wear warmup pants over his shorts on this chilly morning, he didn't want to eat anything, he didn't want to drink anything -- it was all just all wrong, wrong, wrong.

If this was a freebie run, I'd have called it off. But I had thirty dollars into it, because he'd told me he wanted to run. So off we went, Hubs, Mr. Grumpy, and me. After we picked up our race bibs and pinned them to our T-shirts -- T pouting through the whole process -- I gave him a hug and told him not to worry about setting a course record -- just go out there and have a fun run.

It was like the weight of the world had lifted off him. He actually smiled. The pre-race jitters run strong in this one. Learning to manage them is part of learning to race, but it's a lot to expect out of a seven-year-old, particularly one who doesn't want to run if there's a chance he's not going to win. Even I was experiencing pre-race jitters and I was just out to run it -- I'm not shooting for records or PRs these days.

The rain had stopped and the sun was trying to come out. It was a beautiful morning to run -- crisp and fresh. T and Hubs ambled over to the start area and did some jogging back and forth in the street to warm up. Then it was race time.

The gun went off and Mom anxiously waited the return of her little guy, hoping he wouldn't pull up somewhere along the route with a torn achilles. Expecting him to appear at the top of the bus lane, 300 meters from the finish, at about 21 minutes. Nervous when he didn't. But then, at 22 minutes, there he was. He was behind an older gentleman, but put the pedal to the metal with about 100 meters to go and cruised under the finish line in 23:06, a new PR for him, and a new single-year age course record for male, age seven by more than three minutes.

I snapped two photos of him coming in, watched him cross under the finish line, exclaimed, "New PR!" and turned to run for the end of the chute.

Oh wait!. I hadn't seen Hubs yet. Oops. Sorry, babe. I'm not used to them not finishing together. I turned around just in time to see him about 100 meters out. I got a quick photo of him and then ran to catch my kid. Hubs caught up to him before he got out of the roped-in area. They collected their finisher medals. T was delighted. He'd had fun on his run, and -- bonus -- he got a medal too!

This was the first time he beat Hubs for real. No wink, wink, nudge, nudge this time. We had originally predicted this day would come when T was 10. Earlier this year we revised it to next summer. We were still off by half a year.

And even though the pressure was off, the kid came through in a big way. He really does love to run. Fast. Every time I watch him race, I'm in awe of how tough he is. He has talent, but he also has the fire in the belly. Once he gets going.